The Waiting Place
by Annikaya
Summary: complete! Sirius fell...and landed hard. Now he's on a journey back home.
1. Default Chapter

I do not own Harry Potter and make no profit off of this story.

He hadn't even seen it coming. One moment he was filled with a justifiable rage and the sense of being invincible, the next the bolt was splashing across his chest, hot and sizzling and full of pain. He couldn't believe it. He, Sirius Black, was finally being bested? He who had survived the days of Voldemort's rampage, survived the dementors, escaped Azkaban, was bested by _her?_ All of this flashed through his head as he fell back, the bolt still sizzling on his chest and then he felt cold all over as he felt something like cold satin brush him as he fell...

...and hit the ground. Hard."What are you doing in here?" A surprised voice said.

Sirius tuned that out. You weren't supposed to hear voices when you were dead.

"Umm, are you alright?"

"Of course I'm alright. I'm dead!" he snapped back.

"Well, actually I'm not sure how dead we are," the other informed him politely.

Sirius decided to open his eyes. Everything was white. So far everything was pointing to the dead theory.

"My name's Annikaya." There was an expectant pause. "And you are..."

"Annoyed."

"Oh."

Sirius glanced down at himself, and finding himself whole, sat up. Upon further examination he realized he was not in the floating white vista he'd expected but instead in a white room. That annoyed him even more. Plus it made him depressed. He didn't want to be stuck in one boring white room for all eternity. It was too much like being stuck in his house, just without the annoying picture of his mother screaming at him.

He turned to look at the woman who'd been speaking to him. She was seated in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. She had long dark blonde hair and glasses. The glasses reminded him of Harry.

"Bloody hell! What about Harry?"

"Who's Harry?" the woman asked curiously.

"He's in trouble! They're trying to kill him!" Sirius was looking frantically around the room. There was no door, now window, not even one of those muggle electricity plug things.

"I'm sorry."

Sirius turned to her. "Can't you do something?"

"Me? I'm not running this place! Look, there's nothing you can do. Why don't you calm down and tell me about it."

"But I have to help him!" Sirius had found his wand and aimed it at one offending wall. "Blastamus!" he shouted. Nothing happened. "What?"

"It won't work here," the woman informed him.

Sirius ignored her and continued shouting curses at the wall. Finally he gave up and sat down opposite the woman. "Look you-"

"Annikaya," she supplied helpfully.

He went on as if she hadn't interrupted him. "I don't have much experience being dead so..."

"I'm not sure how dead we are," she repeated. This time it caught his attention.

"So, where are we then?" he asked mournfully.

"Well," Annikaya looked around as if seeing it for the first time, "I believe we're in a sort of...purgatory. What I don't understand is how _you_ got here."

"Neither do I." Sirius fell silent.

Annikaya waited awhile for him to speak, then apparently grew impatient. "So, what's your name?"

"Black."

"Do you have a first name, Black? Or is that your first name?" Her tone was wry, indicating that she didn't really enjoy having to pry answers out of him but somehow still found it morbidly amusing.

"Sirius Black." He paused. "What makes you so sure we're not dead?" He wanted to dismiss her idea of purgatory or any idea of being dead and just think he'd been kidnapped by Voldemort's forces but he remembered his chest burning, the smell of himself on fire.

"I always thought heaven would have angels and happiness and light. And this isn't exactly my idea of hell either." She fingered a gold chain she wore around her neck but Sirius couldn't see what was on the chain. "How _did_ you get here anyway?" she asked.

Sirius groaned. "Harry was right. It was probably all that stupid house elf! It lured me to the Ministry of Magic-"

"Wait, wait, wait! Start at the beginning!" Annikaya interrupted yet again. Sirius found that habit very annoying. "What's a house elf? What's the ministry of magic? And who's Harry?"

Sirius sighed impatiently and told her the whole story.  
"So, there you have it." he finished glumly.

Annikaya was shaking her head. "Some people have all the luck."

"What do you mean?!" he demanded.

"I'm an English teacher. And you're a wizard!" she proclaimed as if that explained everything.

"At least English teachers don't typically have people trying to kill them!"

That made her mad. "Oh really? Then I suppose you'd like to tell me how I got here?" She was tired of his superior attitude and grumpy self-pity. She was angry because he didn't know anything about her and thought he did. She certainly didn't ask him to join her.

Her words had surprised Sirius and apparently actually penetrated his self-absorption. "What?"

Annikaya looked a bit embarrassed. "I'm also a writer. Science-fiction, fantasy. A reader tracked me down and felt that I should be with him. He started threatening me and he shoved me. I was in the middle of the street and as I fell back on the people behind me he drew a gun but then there was a big flash and I was here. He hadn't fired the gun, so I don't know how I got here but...actually I felt really cold and I fell here like you did. I remember falling _through_ something too...like...like spider webs or something. So I guess maybe I'm dead...sort of." She shrugged. "I've had time to get used to it. Just...my family must be so upset." Annikaya's eyes filled and she blinked rapidly to clear them. Her nose turned bright red too.

Sirius felt guilty. "I'm sorry." He didn't say that very often. "Harry's the only one who'll be upset about me. And those friends of his. Remus too I guess."

"I'll bet that Dumbledore guy will be."

"Yeah."

"Oh, I almost forgot! When I got here I had this too." Annikaya held up something shiny. It was an old Doritos bag that had been opened on the sides to make one big sheet.

"It must have been a port-key." Sirius said. "Lucky you probably backed right into it. Strange though that it was set for here. It must have backfired when you fell on it."

"Yeah. Lucky me." The sarcasm dripped off her words. Sirius guffawed, her tone was so amusing. She glared at him but she was too little for it to be actually intimidating.

Lightning fast her expression changed and became thoughtful. "By the way, although we won't need to eat or anything here, you will sleep."

Sirius was rather taken aback by her abrupt transformation. To cover his confusion he looked around the small white space again. As he looked up he noticed something. From this far away it looked like some sort of mirror covered in a grey cloth. But he knew it must be how he'd entered. And an entrance is usually, but not always, an exit as well.  
"I need to get up there." He said with authority.

Annikaya gave him a humoring look. "And you propose to do that how?"

Sirius glared at her. "You would never have been a Marauder."

She looked back at him unruffled. "Of course not. From what you've described I'd be more like Herm...Herm..."

"Hermione."

She snapped her fingers. "Exactly. I-" and she said this with pride and authority-"am an overachiever and a perfectionist."

"Then why don't you think of a perfect way out of here?"

"Unless you can fly or have a grappling hook..." There was a pause sufficient to tell her that he had no such thing.

Her eyes alighted on the end of Sirius' wand stuck out of his robe pocket. "Tell me more about magic?"

"Here." Sirius handed her the wand. "When you do one of the simplest spells you swish and flick the wand and say the words. Like wingardium leviosa. Go ahead and try. The wand won't work here anyway." He pantomimed swishing and flicking.

Annikaya eyed him dubiously. "Ok. Wingardium Leviosa!" At her words of command sparks shot out the end of the wand! They fountained, red and blue and yellow, out the end and Annikaya shrieked, dropping the wand. The sparks stopped. Annikaya whirled on Sirius. "I thought you said it didn't work!"

Sirius scratched his jaw contemplatively. "Huh. Fancy that." He picked up the wand and aimed it at the wall again. "Blastamus." Nothing. Then he aimed it at the potato chip bag. "Accio." The potato chip bag sailed into his hand.

Annikaya watched this with interest and wonder. "How come I got sparks?"

"It's not your wand." Sirius said absently. He was eyeing the grey 'mirror' above.

"So if I had my own wand, it would work?"

"Are you afraid of heights?"

Annikaya looked frustrated for not having her imperative question answered but she answered his anyway. "No."

"Good. Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa!" He shouted it twice, aiming once at her and once at himself. Before Annikaya had a chance to say anything she was in the air!

The two floated up gently as Sirius swished and flicked toward the ceiling. Annikaya was grinning like a maniac.

Sirius looked at her in concern. "Are you ok?"

"Better than ok! This is terrific!"

"It's only a simple spell..." Sirius was looking at her as if worried she might be contagious but then he caught himself. Something about her wide-eyed wonder made him reconsider what he'd always taken for granted, what he'd lived his whole life with. He looked at her again out of the corner of his eye. He wondered if this was how it was for all muggle-born wizards. If magic was more precious to them because they didn't expect it.

"Look!" Annikaya exclaimed and Sirius turned to where she was pointing. The walls of their white cell had ended and there was a second 'floor' that they barely had time to register before the wand failed again and Annikaya and Sirius went plummeting back down at least two stories to the floor below.

"That hurt." Annikaya said dryly without moving. "I wonder if I'm dead again. Hey Sirius, will that wand conjure up Motrin?"  
  
Sirius was sitting up slowly. "What are Motrin?"  
  
"Pain killers. Don't tell me you don't have those in the wizard world?"  
  
"Even if I did, I can't just conjure stuff up out of midair. Or else I'd conjure us a door!" Sirius was exasperated.  
  
"Look," Annikaya started to say but was interrupted by a giant yawn. "It's been a long day. Why don't we try again tomorrow? We'll both be better for some sleep, especially you. You look like you haven't slept in weeks."  
  
"Haven't," Sirius mumbled.  
  
"Well, go ahead and sleep now. Nothing's going to happen until we've had some sleep." She demonstrated by curling up in the corner, her head pillowed on her arm.  
  
Sirius sighed defeatedly and lay down in the other corner but sleep eluded him. He opened them again and looked at Annikaya. Her eyes were closed but thick tears were trailing down her cheeks.  
  
"Sirius, do you suppose I could someday get a wand?"  
  
Sirius thought he knew what she really meant. _Can I someday have magic? Can I someday be what I've always dreamed about but only been able to write about?_ He felt a sudden surge of anger. Why hadn't this woman ever gotten a letter to Hogwarts or some other school? Yes, she was a Yank, but didn't they have schools? After all, a muggle couldn't make sparks come out of a wand, so she definitely had potential. She wasn't just a dreamer. Sirius watched her face. "As soon as we get out of here I'll take you straight to Olivander's myself." he swore.  
  
Annikaya's eyes were still closed but a soft smile lit up her face. "Thank you." she whispered.  
  
Sirius listened to her breathing slow into sleep, closed his own eyes, and slept for the first time in weeks.

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	2. Chapter Two

When Sirius opened his eyes next Annikaya was already awake and pacing around the edges of the room looking up. She noticed he was awake. "It's funny but you can't see where the walls end from here. It looks like it goes on forever."  
  
Sirius stood and shook out his robes. He hated wrinkly robes. He only wished he had a comb about too. "Well, shall we try again?" he inquired.  
  
"Wouldn't it be better to try one person at a time?" Annikaya asked. "That way only one of us risks falling another thousand feet."  
  
For a second she sounded exactly like James and Sirius looked at her oddly before he pulled out his wand. It was a reasonable suggestion. "You or me?"  
  
"You. You're crazy." she grinned.  
  
To his surprise Sirius grinned back at her. "That's the spirit!" He swished and flicked and rose steadily up into the air. Annikaya stood back against the wall to get a better view. "I can just make out the top of the wall." he called down a couple minutes later. "Here it-" Before he could finish he was yet again falling helplessly through the air!  
  
Annikaya's face swam into focus before his own. "Are you ok Sirius?"  
  
Sirius groaned. "That hurt more than before."  
  
"I noticed. You had me really scared. I thought you'd..."  
  
"Died?" he asked dryly.  
  
"You know what I mean!"  
  
Sirius touched the back of his head experimentally. "Not even a goose egg. Damn, that hurts!"  
  
"You shouldn't use language like that when we're in this position."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Damn. You know, it means go to hell. And we're...never mind. I thought it was funny." she ended lamely.  
  
"I'm the one who hit his head." he reminded her.  
  
She sighed and asked the heavens what she'd done to deserve this.  
  
"This being a handsome bloke like me?" he asked just to see her reaction. She was really pretty funny when she got like this. Annikaya leveled the Death Glare at him again. Sirius just smiled innocently.  
  
"I'm going to write a nasty book about you." she vowed.  
  
Sirius chuckled and swished and flicked again. "I almost made it this time." he informed her groggily.  
  
"Sirius..."  
  
He shoved her hand away and sat up by himself. He looked up speculatively.  
  
"Too bad you can't conjure up some rope or something."  
  
"Do you want to try?" he asked her.  
  
"Sirius, I admit that this is the only plan we've got but it's not working. You just aren't high enough before you hit the barrier or whatever."  
  
"You're right." Sirius sighed defeatedly.  
  
"It's ok. We'll get out of here. Already you've done more than me in all my time here."  
  
He turned to her. "Just how long have you been here?"  
  
"I don't really know." she replied. "I'm not ageing so I'm not sure how time works here. I tried marking on the walls but I didn't have anything to mark with. I didn't have my purse that day. So all I have is a potato chip bag..." her voice trailed off. "Say, Sirius..." her voice was in forced- casual mode. "I know you said you couldn't just make stuff but can you change it? From one thing to another?"  
  
"Yeah, why?"  
  
"Well, could you...change a potato chip bag into a ladder?"  
  
"No." Sirius winced as her face fell. "The two things are just too different. You can change a pen into a pencil because they're about the mass. A matchbox can become a frog or a rat a goblet because they stay about the same mass. But a potato chip bag...If only we had some string or thread I could turn it into rope but a potato chip bag just won't work."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Sirius hated to see her so down. He smiled confidently for her. "Don't worry. If a baby can defeat He-who-must-not-be-named, then two idiots like us can certainly get out of a silly old box. Why don't you get some rest? Maybe something will come to us when we're fresh."  
  
Sirius woke up suddenly. He looked over at Annikaya soundly asleep. "Psst. Annikaya." She didn't wake up. "Annikaya!"  
  
"What?" she mumbled.  
  
"I've got an idea."  
  
She didn't even open her eyes. "Tell me in the morning." Just like that she was asleep again. It took Sirius considerably longer. "You want to WHAT?!"  
  
"Calm down! It's not like I like this any better than you." Sirius said impatiently.  
  
"Do you want to explain this to me one more time?" she demanded.  
  
He sighed. "It was what you said yesterday about transfiguring something into a ladder. We obviously can't do that but I can transfigure thread into rope. And our clothes are the only thread around here."  
  
"If you think for one minute that I'm going to get naked for you-"  
  
"No! God, no! Hopefully our outer clothes will be enough."  
  
"And if they're not?" Her voice was soft and dangerous.  
  
"I wouldn't even think of looking. I'll use a spell if you like."  
  
Annikaya's eyes were narrowed. "Good. Because I think we both know who'd be losing their skivvies first, don't we?"  
  
"Do you want to get out of here or not?"  
  
"Just get on with it, will you?" she snapped.  
  
Sirius bit back a reply and began. "Is it ready yet?" Annikaya asked, her arms crossed protectively as she stood in her underwear.  
  
"Just two last things." he said. "I've got to make it stronger and attach your belt buckle as a hook to the end." He was feeling a little uncomfortable trying to work magic in his underwear.  
  
"Ummm, Sirius...I just thought of something. I can't climb rope." she admitted.  
  
Sirius brushed that aside. "We'll fly as high as we can and then I'll climb up the rope and pull you the rest of the way. It's only a couple of feet."  
  
"Oh. Ok. Thanks." She watched him attach the belt buckle and turn it into a grappling hook. And once again the two took to the air.  
  
"Get ready." Sirius cautioned Annikaya. "Hand me the rope." He twirled the end and threw it up to the ledge. It missed and came falling back. The second time it got up but didn't have anything to support their weight. The third time it finally held. Annikaya grabbed the dangling end and tied it around her waist while Sirius grabbed hold above her head.  
  
"Remember, your floating will stop too when I cross the barrier. Are you secure?" he asked her.  
  
She tugged on the rope to demonstrate that she was. "Good luck!"  
  
He began shimmying up the rope, his wand in his teeth and not his pocket so the flotation spell would remain active. A few feet up he hit the barrier and Annikaya dropped a few inches as the rope took over. She let out a startled shriek.  
  
"Are you alright?" he called down around the wand. It came out as more of a concerned mumbling.  
  
She understood anyway. "I'm fine. You keep going before you get tired out." She watched him climb the rest of the way and scramble over the ledge and out of sight. A few minutes later Sirius pulled her up. They had finally succeeded in escaping the white room! Annikaya brushed herself off; she'd scraped her hand pulling herself over the ledge and had a nasty rope burn around her waist. Sirius was busy changing the rope back into clothes. She looked around.  
  
The space they were in was just a grey room like the white one but had one considerably advantage. There was a door behind Sirius at the far end of the room. The doorknob was that gold gilt paint that tarnishes and shows the silver metal underneath if it's used too much. None of the silver was showing.  
  
"Here are your clothes." Sirius said, breaking her intense study of the door.  
  
"Uh, one sleeve's shorter than the other.  
  
"Oops. Sorry. I forgot I had that hole in my sock." Obedient to his wand a bit of string uncurled from under his robe, changed color, and added itself to her sleeve.  
  
"That was kind of cute. I'm going to name that thread Lucy." she announced. Sirius stared at her but knew better than to say anything. Instead he reached for the doorknob.  
  
"No! Don't!"  
  
Sirius turned back to her. "Why the hell not?" he asked irritably.  
  
"Someone obviously went to a lot of trouble to keep us down there, what with the barrier and all. Don't you think there might be some sort of protection on the door?"  
  
Sirius grumbled and pointed his wand at the door.  
  
"Not that!" She hadn't spoken soon enough.  
  
"Blastamus!" Nothing happened. "Maybe..." Sirius shouted another word that Annikaya didn't quite catch and the door fell off its hinges, revealing shadowy depths behind.  
  
"I thought magic didn't work." Annikaya was confused.  
  
"Attack magic doesn't work." he replied smugly. He bent down to study the fallen door. "Poison."  
  
"WHAT?! Really? I mean..."  
  
Sirius looked up at her. She was very pale. "It probably wouldn't have hurt us. I mean, it didn't hurt us when we fell all that way." Of course, that wasn't to say that this wouldn't have hurt them, but he didn't want to scare her. "Come on." Taking her hand in his, they stepped over the door into the shadows beyond. Sirius looked around in confused amazement. Before him stretched rows of odd desks with strange glowing boxes, wires curling out the back onto the floor where they joined with more wires. These strange boxes were surrounded with three sided walls of some sort of fabric, each set of three walls surmounted with a strange milky white inverted pear shaped object. In front of each hypnotically blue-white glowing box was a flat sheet with raised squares with some sort of code imprinted on them.  
  
"What is this?" he asked quietly, more to himself than anyone else.  
  
"Why is more what I'd like to know." Annikaya remarked. She walked over to one of the glowing boxes. "Same make as mine."  
  
Sirius was startled and looked at Annikaya with the same wonder he'd applied to the mysterious apparatus. "You know what this is?"  
  
"Of course I do." She looked at him blankly. "Don't tell me you've never seen a computer before!"  
  
"A what?"  
  
"A computer. Do you think it's safe to touch?" When he nodded she grabbed a square piece of plastic and began sliding it across the desk. It made a funny clicking sound and the design on the front of the glowing box changed.  
  
Sirius leaned forward mesmerized. "What are you doing?"  
  
She glanced up, startled. "Oh! Well, this is called a mouse and it moves the arrow on the screen. The arrow allows me to access data."  
  
"What's that do?" he pointed to the flat thing with the squares sticking up.  
  
"It's a keyboard. You use it to store data." She dragged the cursor over to a picture on the screen that said "My Documents." The mouse clicked again.  
  
"This is amazing! And muggles use this all the time?"  
  
"Well, yeah...hmmm."  
  
"What?"  
  
"There's nothing in this file" The mouse clicked again and the box on the screen disappeared. Sirius was slightly disappointed; the box had been sort of pretty with a cloud background. The mouse clicked yet again and suddenly the computer was making strange noises, clicks and whirs and mechanical grinding screeches!  
  
"What's it doing now?" Sirius exclaimed, stepping back.  
  
"It's just loading up internet." Her voice was bland.  
  
"What's that?" he asked. Briefly he considered being quiet and letting her work but decided against it. After all, if he hadn't followed his curiosity he never would have met James, Remus, and Peter. Or found out that Remus was a werewolf.  
  
"Internet is...a world-wide data sharing network." Annikaya said carefully as another box popped up. "A homepage would have been a start." she muttered. She put her fingers on the keyboard and began pressing the squares down. The sound it made was kind of pleasant. "Won't let me access my email! Stupid machine!"  
  
"Email?"  
  
She sighed and straightened. "I thought maybe I could send a message to someone letting us know where we are. But it won't work."  
  
"Oh." Truth be told, Sirius was too fascinated with the mysterious bit of technology to be too upset with its failure. "Where to n-"  
  
"Shhh!" At Sirius's warning Annikaya stopped and listened. Someone was coming.  
  
"Quick!"  
  
The two raced down a row of the strange desks and ducked underneath one, trying to keep out of sight. They heard a door open somewhere on the very far side of the room. Boot steps echoed on the tile floor and suddenly the fluorescent lights came on, flooding the room. Sirius jumped, for he was used to the candles and magical lighting of his world, not the harsher lighting without the warning of spell words. The boot steps echoed down one of the aisles of desks as the walker went to the door. There was a click and a buzz.  
  
"Yes sir. The door's been breached. Out." The voice was oddly accented. There was a pause. "Yes sir."  
  
Annikaya's heart was racing and she was sure the booted person would hear it any second.  
  
"Understood sir. Out." There was another ominous click and then the booted feet retreated and the lights turned off. The door shut on the other side of the room  
  
Annikaya began to scoot out from under the desk but Sirius caught her sleeve in a vice-like grip and there was a clear warning in his eyes. Annikaya held still, her leg cramping painfully under her. A few moments later they heard a couple more shuffled boot steps and the door opened and closed again. Annikaya slumped to the floor.  
  
"That was close. That was so close." She was shaking. "How did you know?"  
  
"Practice." he said and tapped his wand on the desk before tracing a bit of red fire in the air to assure that it worked. "Come on. Let's go." he said grimly. They strode purposefully down corridors deserted of life, Sirius holding his wand ready. Eventually the hallway they were following branched out into a sterile lobby. On the other side of an arrangement of pale blue and purple chairs another hallway branched off. On the other side of the chairs and fake floral arrangement were double doors looking onto a parking lot that backed up to the woods, full of skinny half-grown trees.  
  
The two quickly exited the building. Annikaya glanced up to see that the building did not bear a name. Sirius was also looking around in confusion.  
  
"What's the matter?"  
  
"There are no cars in the parking lot and look," he swept his hand before him indicating everything, "the parking lot doesn't have an entrance or an exit. It's like this whole... picture isn't finished."  
  
"Maybe...maybe we should hide." Annikaya said nervously, twining a piece of hair back and forth between her fingers rapidly.  
  
Sirius jogged the length of the parking lot and slipped into the shadows between trees, Annikaya at his heels. She gave an audible sigh of relief as they entered under the meager canopy. Sirius looked back at her quizzically.  
  
"I feel safe in the woods," she explained a bit sheepishly. "I always have."  
  
Sirius was regarding her with a thoughtful frown.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I need to do a spell but it's slightly dangerous and I need your permission first."  
  
"Huh? Why do you need my permission?"  
  
"I need to apparate to the Order's headquarters and figure out what's going on. Then I can let Dumbledore know about you too. But I don't know where we are, so I can't apparate back unless I have something to trace. I can set an aura on you but if anyone else is looking for an aura, they'd find you."  
  
"How likely is that?"  
  
"Not very." Sirius shrugged casually.  
  
"Alright." Then she hesitated. "It's not permanent or going to hurt, is it?"  
  
"No. Just hold still."  
  
Annikaya, avidly fascinated but Latin, tried to understand what he said next but failed. A golden mist streamed out of his wand and settled about her until she had a glowing gold outline. Experimentally she raised her hands and studied the outlines, her eyes wide with delight. After a few minutes the outline faded. When she looked up Sirius was already gone. Sighing, Annikaya settled herself at the base of a tree to wait for him. 


	3. Chapter Three

Sirius, who had a lot of practice from years spent avoiding the law, apparated very neatly and accurately. He'd never made a mistake. He had no idea how he could have made one now when he had been trying to get to his own home. Instead he found himself standing in the middle of a busy police station, where due to his strange dress and sudden appearance (although the muggles didn't suspect anything magical) he was immediately surrounded by angry police with guns and herded into a prison cell until they could contact the local hospital. In fact, his mentioning Dumbledore led the police to believe he was a highly unstable schizophrenic.  
  
Sirius sighed. Wizards thought he was a demented serial killer and muggles thought he was a demented schizophrenic. Did he really look that crazy? He was lucky Annikaya hadn't taken one look at him and decided to scream or beat him over the head with his own wand!  
  
The other occupant of the cell looked up at his heavy sigh. The police had called this other one Cubby as they threw Sirius in. Grubby would have been more accurate. He didn't look too friendly either.  
  
Well, Sirius still had his wand and he knew where Annikaya was-a warm glow far off to the north. Sirius turned to Cubby, who had a speculative gleam in his eye.  
  
"Neighbor, you might want to stop ending up in jail. It's bad for your health." He disapparated.  
  
Cubby, convinced he'd seen a messenger of the Lord, called for the cops and started confessing his sins. The cops weren't nearly as happy about the missing prisoner as Cubby was. When Sirius reapparated, he aimed to be beside the young English teacher but by the time he'd finished she was ten yards ahead of him and still running.  
  
"Anni-" he started to say but she interrupted him yet again.  
  
"Run!"  
  
Normally he would have been irritated with her but her voice was breathless and panicked. With his longer legs he caught up with her as they crashed through the underbrush.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Wolves or something." she gasped out.  
  
Sirius immediately shifted to his animagi form, thinking to communicate with his evolutionary cousins. As a dog, thousands of sensory input flooded his systems. He could smell Annikaya's sharp startlement at his shape and gave a doggy smile. He turned his black and white vision to their rear to catch the scent of their pursuit.  
  
This time it was his turn to be surprised. The scent that came back was familiar. Of course, it should be since it was similar to a scent he'd spent a lot of full moons with. Werewolves. But it wasn't a full moon. It wasn't even noon. What was going on?  
  
Sirius returned to his normal shape, briefly regretting the lack of rich smells that had assailed him.  
  
"Stop." he told Annikaya, drawing his wand. She did gratefully, her face flushed. Sirius worked a little spell to erase their scent. When he turned, Annikaya was picking up pebbles from the forest floor, brushing the crumbs of clinging dirt off.  
  
"Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa!" he levitated the two of them high into the large oak behind her.  
  
"I wish you'd give me some warning!" she said, annoyed.  
  
He hushed her, listening as one of the werewolves gave off a howl. They were near. Sirius supposed they must have found his scent rejoin Annikaya's- the range of his scent deletion spell was only about a fifty meters.  
  
There came a couple of short yips and barks and then four adult werewolves raced into sight. They were lean but in very good shape with muscles that rippled under their fur. It was yet another indicator that something was wrong for usually werewolves were too hunted and the changing too painful for them to put on much weight.  
  
Sirius watched the wolves sniff around, hoping they would give up without a trail but suddenly one lifted its head, apparently having caught their scent on the breeze. It began to growl low in its throat, hackles up. The other two saw and began snarling and leaping at the tree, slavering jaws closing just half a meter or so below their branch.  
  
Annikaya began pelting them with the pebbles she'd picked up and Sirius was impressed with her forethought. "Petrificus Totalus!" Sirius shouted as a particularly aggressive pair of jaws snapped shut nearer than Sirius was comfortable with. Of course, probably out of pure perversity, it didn't work. Sirius wished he'd learned to create a patronus like Harry. That could have been helpful.  
  
Annikaya threw a pebble particularly hard, drawing a yelp from one werewolf, who fell back to all fours.  
  
Determinedly the wolf shook its mottled grey and brown fur, which began to blur into human skin.  
  
"What's it doing?" Annikaya asked shrilly.  
  
"They're werewolves. It's...turning human on purpose?!" Maybe these weren't werewolves. The wolf, now a human woman, growled to the other two, who retreated ten paces from the tree, whining anxiously. The woman turned back to her treed prey.  
  
"You might as well come down. Otherwise we'll just have to come up and get you."  
  
Her eyes were still wolfish and her long hair that covered her naked form was the same tawny brown as her fur had been. She didn't seem to mind her nakedness, tangled mane, or the dirt that streaked her. For all of that she had a strange cold dignity that translated to a kind of imperial beauty.  
  
"What do you want with us?" Sirius called down. He was trying to think of a defensive spell in case the woman did decide to scale the tree.  
  
"You're in our territory. Isn't that enough?"  
  
Sirius was about to reply but Annikaya cut him off again. "No. It's not."  
  
"What are you doing?" Sirius hissed.  
  
"She's lying!" she whispered back, her eyes not leaving the were-woman's. "Dogs and wolves don't lie well. Can't you see it in her posture?"  
  
Sirius wanted to slap himself, for he should have seen that. He knew how hard it was.  
  
One of the other wolves whined but the woman ignored it. "The Givers of our land asked for you. We will give you to them."  
  
"Who are these 'givers'?" Sirius asked.  
  
The woman shrugged. "They are the givers. No more questions. Come or I will set the pack up the tree."  
  
Sirius reached for Annikaya's arm, ready to try more spells that wouldn't work but his hand encountered only air. "Annik-" His voice cut off on him in shock. Annikaya had slid off the tree branch and now stood gazing eye to eye with the wolf woman. The world seemed to narrow until it included only the two of them, a strange short green-eyed jean clad woman to a strange tall wolf-eyed naked woman. It was silent for long moments as they searched each other's eyes for something both of them knew but no one else did.  
  
"Very well." The woman shook herself, fur growing as her form shifted to all fours. Sirius was frozen in the tree, his wand pointed at her. In wolf form again, the woman gave a short bark and the three wolves padded out of sight.  
  
Sirius slid out of the tree and took Annikaya by the shoulders. "What were you thinking? She could have killed you! Ripped you limb from limb!"  
  
Annikaya didn't like being yelled at and she tore herself from his grasp. "Stop yelling at me! She never wanted to kill us! She wanted to take us to the those givers!" she yelled back.  
  
"You were still in unnecessary danger. Don't do that again." he ordered her.  
  
That didn't seem to help the matter any. "I'm an adult! I can make my own decisions! You're just mad because I didn't consult you first and I saved your butt!" Annikaya retorted.  
  
Sirius didn't even bother to reply. It was just too ridiculous. He stomped over to where the wolves had disappeared and tried to catch a glimpse of them to make sure they weren't coming back. "Did you contact your group thing?" Annikaya asked after what she felt was a sufficient amount of time.  
  
Sirius still didn't look at her. "No. I don't know what happened. It's not there."  
  
"Is there anywhere else you can go? Anywhere else you might meet them?"  
  
"Yes. I think there are."  
  
"Do you need to bespell me again?"  
  
Sirius shook his head. "No. I didn't have time to remove the original spell. However, I think you'll be safer up in the tree. We don't want a repeat of earlier."  
  
Annikaya nodded. "Fire away!"  
  
Sirius spent all afternoon apparating and disapparating. Everywhere he went things were wrong. Trying to apparate to Remus' house he landed in a wetlands with a startled blue heron looking him straight in the eye. The attempt for Tonks' house yielded a lingerie store. In desperation he even tried the Weasleys', only to end up in the middle of a zoo exhibit. As a last resort he tried the Dursleys. This ended up being a trip to an empty field. Sirius just didn't understand it. He was tired, had been mauled by women in the lingerie store, was wet from the heron's panicked splashing, had been mauled by a lion at the zoo, and on top of that it was getting dark. With a sigh he apparated back to Annikaya.  
  
"What happened to you?" she asked, tugging one tattered sleeve.  
  
"That was the lion." he explained dolefully. In the gathering gloom he could see her eyes widen.  
  
"The what?"  
  
Gathering some sticks together he lit a blaze with his wand and told her about his adventuresome afternoon. "Are your clothes dry yet?" she asked him, concerned, when his tale was through. "We don't want you to get sick on us."  
  
"Just a bit more." he assured her and stared pensively at the fire. "I just don't understand it." he told her. "All of them gone? It's not likely."  
  
Annikaya frowned. "Has it occurred to you that maybe we're still stuck? I mean, we're still not hungry and we should be. Maybe we need to go through that grey thing in the top of that room. I mean, we came from there, didn't we?"  
  
"Bugger. You're probably right. How'd we do that?"  
  
Annikaya looked up at the stars visible through the trees. "Tomorrow."  
  
"Hmpf."  
  
Annikaya begin humming softly, words breaking out now and again. She was leaning contentedly back against a tree, still eyeing the sky.  
  
She looks happy when she sings, Sirius thought, surprised that the nonsense wasn't bothering him. In fact, it was kind of relaxing.  
  
"You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away."  
  
A movement out of the corner of his eye made Sirius turn carefully for danger but it was only a tree sprite lured out by the music. "Don't stop singing." Sirius said softly.  
  
Annikaya's eyes grew wide, for she hadn't seen the tiny sprite yet, but she kept singing. "The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping..."  
  
The sprite crept into the light cast by the fire; its tiny emerald green eyes alight with curiosity that was suddenly mirrored in Annikaya's eyes. The little creature was humanoid in form, covered in a mottled green and brown fur that Sirius knew helped to keep them hidden in the trees.  
  
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..."  
  
Then the fire gave a loud pop and the creature gave a high pitched tinny squeak. Fanning emerald-veined wings the little thing fluttered off.  
  
"Sirius, what was it?" Annikaya was delighted.  
  
Sirius found himself grinning at her child-like expression. "A tree sprite. They're very shy but they love music. A lot of magical creatures do because music can be a form of magic."  
  
From the look on her face Sirius belated realized he'd just provided her with fuel for a million questions. He should have known. After all, she was a teacher. With a smile that he didn't even want to examine, he leaned back and allowed the barrage to begin. When Annikaya awoke the next morning Sirius was already up, watching the sunrise color the sky as if paint had no cost.  
  
"I wish you'd woken me," she commented, watching a particularly bright red swirl of color.  
  
There wasn't any need for Sirius to speak, for the morning was still and perfect. "I always watch the sunrise if I can." he said after awhile.  
  
"I didn't really have you pegged as a morning person."  
  
"I didn't used to be. James was but I'd sleep till noon if I could. But I missed too many sunrises in Azkaban."  
  
There wasn't much one could say to that so instead they just watched the sunrise slip away.  
  
"Well," Annikaya stood, brushing off her pants. "What's the plan for today? Sneak back inside and wingardium leviosa ourselves through the window thing?"  
  
"We're both just daft." Sirius muttered under his breath. He hurried to catch up to the much-too-cheerful blonde who was marching purposefully away.  
  
It wasn't nearly as easy to sneak back into the building as it had been to sneak out. People in khaki uniforms were everywhere. Sirius was able to change their own clothes to look like the uniforms but they still had to be cautious not to be stopped, for their accents would give them away if nothing else did first. However, they weren't stopped.  
  
Annikaya, after entering the building, had immediately assumed a brisk, purposeful, leave-me-alone type stride and Sirius had his ready scowl. He had to admit to a bit of inner curiosity about Annikaya's natural and flawless act, for she always seemed so eager and happy but this was the stride of a focused loner. He pushed that away as they entered the computer lab.  
  
There were a few differences here too. The computer Annikaya had used the previous day had been surrounded with yellow caution tape and a large plastic box had been placed over the computer. Also, the broken door had been repaired. However, it stood open so they didn't have to break it again.  
  
Sirius turned to his partner in crime. "I'm going to place a barrier of hardened air off this floor so we don't fall all that way again and then we'll fly up, ok?" he whispered.  
  
"Why are you whispering?" she whispered back, amused.  
  
Sirius scowled at her before speaking the words that turned the air hard. Annikaya, as full of curiosity as the rest of the time, immediately ran out onto the hardened air and began examining it.  
  
Using the now familiar flotation spell Sirius rose into the air to see if they did indeed have a way home. Well, that wouldn't get them home. Another one of those annoying anti-magic barriers was in the way. Sirius eyed the grey overhead structure balefully.  
  
"You're sure this barrier is too low for us to throw a rope up again?" Annikaya pressed.  
  
"Very sure." Sirius sat down with his chin resting glumly on his knee.  
  
Annikaya bit her lip. "Now what?"  
  
"Now...now we rest upon our laurels, pleased with our powers of intelligence." he smiled humorlessly.  
  
Annikaya put a hand comfortingly on his shoulder, then craned her neck up to look. "We could change the computer chairs into something, couldn't we?"  
  
"I thought of that but I'd like to save that as a last resort. The first time one of those guys walks in here he'll notice the chairs are missing. I'd rather not be caught if it's all the same to you."  
  
Annikaya lifted her hand to swat him lightly for his last comment. Sirius had anticipated this and ducked, grinning broadly. "Any other ideas?" In the end they had to try the chair idea because all their other ideas involved sneaking out and back in again with large amounts of firewood. Annikaya rolled another chair up to the stack accumulating on top of the hardened air.  
  
"That's enough to start with I suppose." Sirius mused.  
  
Annikaya sat back and watched the chairs morph into the first part of a spiral staircase. She shook her head. "You're going to have to teach that to me."  
  
Sirius grinned. Having been a show-off in his youth, he didn't mind an appreciative audience now.  
  
Annikaya smiled back at him sunnily and turned to get some more chairs. In the doorway was a stony-faced man in a khaki uniform, some form of projectile weapon in his hand and a communication device flashing on his belt. And he most definitely wasn't happy to see her.  
  
"Erm, hello?" Annikaya's voice was awkward.  
  
"You're coming with me." The man said menacingly, his harsh accent still completely understandable.  
  
"Yes sir!" Where are we going?"  
  
The soldier, for that is what he appeared to be, only tightened his grip on his weapon.  
  
Annikaya's face grew even more strained and pale. "Sorry, I'll be fine, I'll be good. Then someone will get to go home early." she said purposefully, hoping Sirius would catch her meaning. After all, so far Sirius was still hidden around the edge of the staircase.  
  
Suddenly Sirius shouted something and the room filled up with a thick blue smoke. Annikaya dropped instantly as the startled soldier let loose his weapon with a strange roaring sound. She didn't see what it looked like as she scuttled toward the door in through the thickly colored air.  
  
In the computer lab she ducked as she raced down one aisle and heard running feet behind her. She realized it was Sirius only when she heard him shout the counter spell to the air hardening and heard the soldier shout as he fell. "Hey!" Another soldier stood in the door. This time the effects of the pointed weapon were immediately visible as little red streaks shot through the spot where Sirius' head had just been. The streaks hit the computer behind him, which immediately danced with sparkling electricity.  
  
Sirius jumped back up and shot off a spell. "Accio!" The weapon went flying through the air to also strike the computer behind Sirius, setting it on fire. Its momentum had been too much for him to catch it. Now Sirius made the air blue again and Annikaya and he both stumbled toward the soldier and the doorway he stood in.  
  
A hand reached out to grab Sirius' arm and pin it behind his back. Suddenly Annikaya was there, slamming hard onto the soldier's head with a keyboard. Most of the keys decided that would be a good time to leave and find the floor. The soldier didn't join them but did release his hold on Sirius to go after his assailant. Sirius, free, hauled off and slugged the man square on the chin. The soldier suddenly had an urge to give into gravity and slid to the floor.  
  
Sirius shook out his throbbing hand while Annikaya crowed in delight. "That was so cool! You looked just like Indiana Jones!"  
  
"Who? Never mind. Let's just get out of here. There's more coming."  
  
Since they knew where they were going, namely out, Sirius once again spoke the words that flooded the area ahead of them with smoke. Startled curses from the end of the hallway alerted them to company.  
  
Annikaya, who'd had her hand on Sirius' sleeve so she didn't lose him, tugged it to get his attention. "Can we fly above them? Then we wouldn't run into them and they wouldn't see us."  
  
Sirius nodded and used his wand again. At the end of the hallway and the smoke both he lowered them back to the ground.  
  
"We don't want to waste time and running is faster." Sirius explained before Annikaya could even open her mouth. Annikaya nodded and they took off down the hall. Suddenly Sirius threw himself on Annikaya and hit the ground as one of the red beams passed over their heads from down the hall. More followed, missing by mere millimeters as the two scrambled to their feet.  
  
Sirius jerked open a door and pulled them both in, slamming it shut and locking it. Annikaya looked around. There was no way out, only a one-way mirror that let them view box like rooms on the other side, each with a humanoid male of varying age in each of the cubicles. She didn't examine them closely although something seemed different about them. They didn't look very happy though.  
  
"Can you free them? Maybe they'll help us."  
  
Sirius tried blasting the mirror but it didn't work. Behind them the doorknob suddenly sprouted little blue sparks as it was shot at.  
  
"It looks like we're out of time and options." Sirius said heavily. "Sorry A-"  
  
Annikaya had been looking up, maybe praying, and she interrupted him excitedly. "The ceiling tiles! Move the ceiling tiles and fly us up there!"  
  
"Huh?" Sirius' world didn't have ceiling tiles but only stout stone and solid wood.  
  
"The ceiling! It's not connected!" She struggled to make sense before the door burst in and soldiers poured forth.  
  
Sirius understood her and did as she commanded, mere seconds before angry weapon-toting soldiers burst into the now empty room.  
  
Sirius had to maintain the floating spell once they were in the ceiling because the tiles wouldn't support their weight so they hovered uncomfortably, brushing the tiles and trying not to bump their heads in the confining space as they tried to figure out how to proceed.  
  
"This way." Sirius whispered, leading the way. Of course, since he was in charge of the spell, Annikaya didn't have any choice but to follow.  
  
Through the thin tiles they could hear shouted commands and slamming doors as people continued to look for them. After what seemed an eternity of cramped spaces, spiders, and darkness they encountered a wall. Sirius carefully slid over a ceiling tile and peered down into the lobby. Seeing two soldiers guarding the door he turned to the woman beside him.  
  
"Suggestions?" he asked softly.  
  
"Your area, not mine."  
  
He nodded, accepting her words, and mulled over the possibilities. It was then that he remembered a particularly devious spell James, Remus, Peter, and he had come up with when they were boys...  
  
Minutes later the doors were unguarded as two anxious guards began chasing their clothes down the hallway. Sirius could hear a smothered giggle beside him as they floated to the floor. Sirius smiled proudly. Some spells were classics. 


	4. Chapter Four

From the woods the two watched soldiers posted both on the inside and the outside of the doors. They were armed with heavier weapons now and they moved with a crispness that suggested just how ready they were to do bodily harm to intruders. Their chances of getting back in didn't look good.  
  
At nightfall when they couldn't see the guards anymore in the dark they wandered back further into the woods to the previous night's camp. They didn't risk a fire, which might bring unwanted attention, but just sat instead in the dark.  
  
"Sirius, what was different about those men in the little rooms? I noticed something but I didn't get a chance to really see."  
  
"I wasn't paying attention. I had other things on my mind at the time."  
  
Annikaya sat back, her brows knitted in thought. She stared at the cold charcoal from the previous night's fire and spoke hesitantly. "They...they had wings too."  
  
"I wouldn't be surprised."  
  
Annikaya was still frowning. "Do you think they were prisoners too?"  
  
"They could have been but they might not have too." He really didn't know where she was going with this.  
  
"You said something last night about music attracting magic. Would it attract one of those people?"  
  
"Yes. If they were near enough they might come. But why would we want to call them?"  
  
"If they're prisoners the others might be willing to help us get back into the building again. What do you think Sirius?" she appealed, suddenly anxious. "But what if they're working for those givers or whatnot?" For some reason that brought to mind Peter and he shivered a bit at that betrayal. Annikaya noticed, even in the dark, but she said nothing. Sirius found himself pathetically grateful for that and wrenched his thoughts back to the task at hand.  
  
Annikaya bit her lip. He noticed that she tended to do that when she was thinking. "Could you cast, like, I dunno, a kind of illusion so I wouldn't actually be near if they were bad? Like a projection or something?"  
  
"Err..." Once again Sirius had to shake off distracting thoughts and figure out what she'd just said. "Yes...yes, I could do that."  
  
"So...how do we want to do this? I was thinking bright and early tomorrow morning. I don't want to be running around in the dark in case they're not friendly."  
  
Sirius shook his head. "Normally I'd agree with you but that particular summoning works best at night."  
  
Once agreed that they would do the summoning that night rather than the next, Sirius and Annikaya both went back up into the tree and Sirius cast an image of Annikaya below them. He turned to see that his companion was slithering back down the tree to gaze at her image.  
  
"What are you doing?" he asked her, slightly irritated at having wasted the effort of levitating her up the tree if she was just going to climb back down.  
  
"I want to see me." she replied. "Mirrors only show the front side." She finished circling her image and returned to the front, regarding her likeness solemnly. "Hmmm." She turned her attention to Sirius. "Can you help me back up?"  
  
"I don't know. Are you going to stay up this time?" he asked wryly.  
  
"Sirius."  
  
He relented.  
  
"Alright now." she wriggled around until she was comfortable so far above the ground. "What now?" "Sing a song asking the winged people to come."  
  
"Make up a song? Yuck. Do you at least know the name of these people? I mean, are they faeries or sprites or...?"  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Annikaya wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I hate having to make up songs. They always sound so inane. I'm more likely to scare them off. Oh well." She sighed and began to sing. "Oh come all ye winged ones, flying, fluttering, people-sized. Oh come ye, oh come ye to where I am."  
  
Her voice didn't show it but her face expressed her embarrassment at butchering a song so. Sirius would have found it funnier but he was diverting most of his attention to making the summons appear to originate from the image as well as animating it.  
  
Still, no matter how bad the song, it worked. Shortly there was a group of ten women approaching the image, delicate crystal wings picking up the light.  
  
One of them was eyeing the image curiously and she spoke first. "Why did you call us?"  
  
Annikaya hesitated before she spoke, her words coming through her image. "I saw some of your people today and wanted to meet you. I have some questions I'd like to ask."  
  
From up in the tree the smile of one of the other women was barely visible as she said, "So do we."  
  
"I'm Annikaya."  
  
The woman who had spoken first turned to introduce the others, ending with herself. "And I'm Azaelia." "I hope you won't think I'm rude. I wouldn't normally ask. You see, we don't belong here and..."  
  
"Just go ahead and ask. I'll try not to be offended." Azaelia said in a friendly tone.  
  
"Err, right then. Are those people in the building holding onto your people on purpose?"  
  
One of the other women, who had been introduced as Vavy, spoke up now and her tone was half shock and half anger. "What?! What are you talking about?"  
  
"Maybe you'd better start at the beginning." Azaelia suggested.  
  
"First I have to know if you work with those people. I won't endanger myself." Annikaya said firmly.  
  
Vavy assured her they did not and Annikaya proceeded to tell her tale.  
  
"So where is this 'Sirius' now?" Vavy asked curiously when the tale was told.  
  
"Actually I'm up here." Sirius spoke. "And so is she." He dropped the illusion. He noted with some amusement that Annikaya was already half way to the ground on her way to meet the women. With a sigh he joined her.  
  
Azaelia was smiling lightly. "Interesting idea." Her wings fanned behind her idly, catching and reflecting the light like little crystal prisms.  
  
"So what's the deal with what we saw?" Annikaya asked. As a whole the other party's faces turned hard and angry.  
  
"They were all taken from us. We didn't know by whom. The Givers, that's what the people in your building call themselves, offered to help us find them in exchange for some favors. We were considering accepting their offer." Annikaya didn't remember her name.  
  
What she did remember was reading something similar to this situation, only in prehistoric times and with a woman named Ayla. She wondered if this all counted as deja vu or not.  
  
Vavy had turned and was fluttering those beautiful wings, rising off the ground.  
  
"Where are you going?" Annikaya asked.  
  
"To get the others." The winged woman replied and flew off.  
  
"What are you going to do?" Sirius asked Azaelia casually.  
  
"We outnumber them by a bit. We'll help you through the veil too. It's the least we can do."  
  
"The veil?" Sirius asked, rolling the unfamiliar term around in his head.  
  
"That's its name." she affirmed. For Sirius it was a long night, waiting in the dark as the army of winged ones gathered. Annikaya had struck up a friendship with several of the winged people and Sirius found himself wishing she were with him for the familiarity of their shared position. Still, he was kept busy telling the others what he knew of the building and by the time morning arrived they were all assembled.  
  
Sirius had seen many things in his life but for many years afterward he remembered the winged people marching to battle, the sparkling wings their only battle flags. They didn't carry weapons as their enemies did, but instead were able to call forth blasts of magic out of nothingness to scorch the sentries and enter the building. Other soldiers came, red pulses from their weapons staining the air. Wings filled the air as the flitted and darted to escape those shots.  
  
The soldiers had been caught by surprise and tried to counter in small squads, expecting only their two escaped prisoners and not an army. Ten men groups are no match against a hundred. The army marched on, inexorably, like a flood, finding the room that unlocked their people and then taking their stations.  
  
Azaelia and Vavy appeared at Sirius' shoulder. "Here we go. Are you ready?"  
  
Sirius nodded and saw Annikaya do so as well.  
  
Twenty of the winged people clustered around the two, as they were unable to directly attack their opponent, and having learned from the last time the soldiers would not be fooled again by blue smoke and the flying spell again. Going through the ceiling wouldn't work either because the winged people's wings wouldn't fit.  
  
The new group struck out down the hall. There was an ambush waiting in the computer lab. One of their party caught the first shot in the chest and went down. Sirius didn't want to see what the energy weapons did to a person but he saw anyway. The soldier who had fired the shot ducked back down behind the partition that had been erected.  
  
"Sirius! Transform them! Or transform the barrier! We can't get a clear shot!" Annikaya said as blasts of magic shot harmlessly over the partition or splashed against it. She was down on the floor trying to stop the wounded from bleeding to death.  
  
Spells scrambled around in his head. "Deletrius!" The barrier the soldiers hid behind suddenly disintegrated.  
  
"That's handy." Someone behind him commented.  
  
Sirius grinned as their team shot off their own magic, cleaning out their attackers.  
  
"Sirius, can you help here?" Annikaya asked, indicating her patient.  
  
Sirius shook his head regretfully. "That's beyond me. I only know simple healing spells."  
  
"All clear!" Someone else shouted and the party was able to enter the lab, leaving a few behind as lookouts. Sirius smirked to see that the chairs he and Annikaya had used the previous day were still stuck at the bottom of the white room as half a staircase, now tipped over from its fall.  
  
"You ready Sirius?" Azaelia asked, fanning her wings rapidly in preparation.  
  
"Can you really lift us?" he asked dubiously, not sure what else he'd expected.  
  
Vavy, having appeared from behind them, scoffed. "Of course we can. You two are nothing." She lifted herself a few inches off the floor and turned to Annikaya. "Grab hold."  
  
Annikaya did so awkwardly, for Vavy was taller than her without the added inches of flight. Sirius grabbed hold of Azaelia with better grace and the two were lifted slowly into the air.  
  
Suddenly there were shouts from the hallway and the sound of blasts being exchanged. Another squad of soldiers burst into the room  
  
"Shield Azaelia and Vavy!" one of the winged people shouted and several rose into the air, for with their hands full Azaelia, Vavy, Sirius, and Annikaya were defenseless. Azaelia and Vavy's wings wee fanning hard and sweat beaded on their foreheads as they strained for altitude and speed. They were almost there!  
  
A red bolt clipped the edge of one of Vavy's wings and she screamed as the crystal veins of her wings turned a rose color. She kept flying. "I'll be fine." she assured Annikaya after a moment, struggling with obvious pain. "It'll heal."  
  
"Repario!" Sirius ordered and the tattered tip repaired, the color returned to normal.  
  
"Sure you don't want to stay?" she asked.  
  
They reached the fluttering veil hung in the air.  
  
"Good luck." Annikaya told their two friends.  
  
"You too." Azaelia said. Then they pushed the two through the veil and everything went black. 


	5. Chapter Five

"Mmm." Annikaya cracked her eyes open to see Sirius's worried face. He had been shaking her. Quickly memory returned and she sat up. "Where are we?"  
  
She looked around, noting thick blue carpeting, white leather couch, and an end table with a lamp on it.  
  
Sirius, seeing she recognized in general where they were, didn't answer. "Great. Now I'm going to be arrested for breaking and entering." he grumbled.  
  
Annikaya tried not to laugh but it came out a strangled cough. He eyed her suspiciously. She just gave him her best innocent face and batted her eye lashes at him.  
  
"Let's look around." he suggested finally.  
  
"Shouldn't we just leave? What if we get caught?" Annikaya looked around nervously.  
  
"That's what this is for, remember?" Sirius held up his wand.  
  
Annikaya didn't look any less nervous but she didn't say anything when he got up and begin walking toward the adjoining room. After a few minutes hesitation she joined him and they both walked into a brightly lit kitchenette. Annikaya immediately went to the pantry bad begin filling her pockets with little packets of crackers.  
  
Sirius eyed her curiously. "Hungry?"  
  
"Unfortunately, no. They're supplies. For transfiguring." She readjusted her bulging pockets.  
  
"Huh." He took some of the cracker packets and stuck them in both his pants pockets and his robe pockets. Annikaya had some good ideas and thought ahead. He liked that and wondered briefly if he'd still have been stuck in dog form eating rats while running from the ministry if she'd been with him then. A noise caught his attention and he cocked his head, listening. Far away, drawing closer, was the sound of sirens. Annikaya could hear it too.  
  
"Those are probably coming for us." Sirius said, scratching his jaw.  
  
As if hearing his thoughts, his companion spoke. "Why us?" It was half moan, half question.  
  
"We could stay and find out."  
  
"But...but what if we can't ever escape?" her voice was tiny and frightened.  
  
Sirius stared solemnly into her eyes, deadly earnest, ignoring the rapidly approaching sirens. "If Azkaban taught me anything it's that there's always an escape. It just depends on if it's worth it." He couldn't begin to impress upon her how serious he was.  
  
She unclenched her hands and jammed them purposefully into her already full pockets. He could hear the crackers crunch. "What do you want to do?" she asked.  
  
"I'd kind of like to know who's after us and why." he answered.  
  
She squared her shoulders resolutely. "Alright then."  
  
Would have been a Gryffindor, he thought with a touch of pride. Definitely a Gryffindor.  
  
They found the front door and sat on the steps together, watching the screaming cop-like cares pull into the driveway. "Name?" the bored bookie asked, not lifting her gaze from the computer screen as they were processed.  
  
Annikaya shifted uncomfortably in her handcuffs. "Annikaya Horn."  
  
"Stephen Malcolm." Sirius said, not a beat behind her.  
  
Annikaya tried hard not to look at him, afraid to give him up and wondering why he'd bothered with a fake name.  
  
"Dungeon three." Dungeon? Annikaya's eyes widened but Sirius didn't seem surprised.  
  
Their two guards took them down a corridor that abruptly became stone, unlocked their handcuffs, and locked them into the stone prison.  
  
"A dungeon?" she asked Sirius incredulously. He only shrugged. There was even straw on the floor.  
  
Sirius retreated to the back of their cell and stretched out on the rough stone pallet. Annikaya gingerly cleared some of the straw away and sat on the floor, considering Sirius thoughtfully.  
  
He cracked open an eye, having felt her regard. "What?"  
  
"Why did you use a fake name?"  
  
He closed his eyes again. "Habit I guess. I don't tell people my name anymore. They tend to run screaming or try to kill me."  
  
"You told me."  
  
His brow knitted in thought. "I suppose I did. Peculiar."  
  
He didn't say anything more and shortly after Annikaya noticed he'd fallen asleep, frowning deeply. He always did that when he slept. She regarded him for a second longer, wishing his sleep was untroubled. She had a feeling the sleep of Sirius Black never was. Shaking her head sadly, she rose and began to inspect their new housing. It was perhaps an hour later and Annikaya's third time counting all the stone blocks when Sirius awoke and spoke again.  
  
"So how did you become an English teacher?" He didn't know what prompted him to ask that but conversation would help keep the cabin fever at bay.  
  
"Huh?" She looked up, startled, not having noticed he was awake. "Oh. I just like reading, that's all. You know, magic, outer space, that kind of thing. See, I always wanted to be a sorceress or a starship captain when I was little. What about you?"  
  
Sirius wasn't quite sure what a starship was but he didn't ask. "I wanted to be a quidditch player." The next three or four hours were devoted to explaining the game.  
  
When the topic ran dry Annikaya began pacing. The cell was considerably smaller than the white room they'd been trapped in before and she was feeling claustrophobic.  
  
"Why don't you try to sleep?" Sirius asked. "Pacing won't help."  
  
"It'll help me not go crazy." she replied.  
  
"Oh, I dunno about that. One of the fellows in Azkaban always used to pace. He went crazy pretty fast." he paused. "Of course, that could have been the dementors."  
  
Annikaya stopped and turned to meet the obscure pain in his eyes. "Is it hard to be here?"  
  
He hadn't expected her to ask that. He didn't want to answer and so he fell back on the cocky attitude he'd displayed as a foolhardy young Marauder. "Who, me? I'm Sirius the Unconquerable!" He threw a reckless grin that had been known to make Hogwarts' female populace swoon.  
  
Annikaya laughed. "More like Sirius the Impossible!" He laughed too but they both cut off abruptly as the door opened.  
  
"Time to go. The Empress wants to see you."  
  
Annikaya caught Sirius' eye at that last bit but he only shrugged before they were both cuffed again. Annikaya smirked when she heard him whisper "Alohomora" under his breath and saw his cuffs twitch as they unlocked. Neither of their guards noticed and Sirius just winked at her.  
  
The two were led to a car like the ones they'd been picked up in earlier and were placed in back. The windows in the car had been darkened and they couldn't see where they were being taken. When the car stopped and the door opened by one of their guards they were already in what appeared to be an underground parking structure.  
  
Sirius growled in annoyance. He didn't like not knowing exactly where he was. It tended to make escaping difficult.  
  
The guards pretended to ignore his little vocalization but as they stepped into the fancy wood inlayed lift one of them was eyeing him warily. Sirius grinned back, making sure to show all his teeth. It was juvenile but it made him feel better.  
  
The lift stopped and the doors opened onto elegant marble flooring liberally scattered with what appeared to be Persian rugs. The walls were again inlaid with the expensive dark wood and a gold gilt. Oil paintings hung in subtly lit alcoves.  
  
Ug. It looks like someplace you'd find a Malfoy. He noticed though that Annikaya was looking around appreciatively as they were led to massive bronze doors flanked by two men in fancy uniforms.  
  
"We have the prisoners she wanted to see." One of their guards said to the men at the door.  
  
They nodded and moved to open the doors.  
  
"Empress, we brought the prisoners you wanted to see."  
  
Both of their guards bowed deeply upon entering the hall and Annikaya and Sirius took the opportunity to look around. The hall had the same highly polished marble floor but the Persian rugs were absent this time. Instead there was a bright red carpet runner that made its way to a raised dais at the other end of the room. Before the dais were several people, all in very formal dress, bordering on being uniforms. On the dais itself was a massive gilt throne with a woman in it, presumably this empress they spoke of. She was wearing a delicate crown of gold with sparkling gems set in it. "Bring them here." she commanded, sounding bored.  
  
As they drew nearer Sirius heard Annikaya gasp and saw her turn a bit pale but she didn't say anything. Sirius turned his attention back to the empress, wondering what had caught Annikaya's attention. The empress was, he guessed, about Annikaya's own age with shoulder-length blondish hair. She was rather pretty but Sirius didn't see what had caught his friend's attention.  
  
The empress was considering them thoughtfully. "What are your names? Where are you from?"  
  
Sirius, not wanting Annikaya to forget his assumed name, stepped forward.  
  
"I am Stephen Malcolm and this is Annikaya Horn. We're from another universe your majesty." He launched into his tale, watching her face to see her reception to what might seem a fairy story but her face remained impassive, her hands folded calmly on the lap of her blue gown. When Sirius was done the empress regarded them thoughtfully.  
  
"Did you know me in your universe Annikaya?"  
  
"Yes Empress Nevaria. We are best friends there."  
  
The empress nodded. "You are dead here. Dark magic attacked a movie theater you and I were in on a double date with out fiancées. Only I survived and after more attacks the people came to me to stop it. I became Empress." As she had spoken, her eyes had unfocused to view her past but now they snapped back to the present and burned into Annikaya's and Sirius'. "Magic of any kind is the highest crime in my empire. Even claiming to be Annikaya will not protect you from that." Now she addressed the two guards. "Take them back to their cells."  
  
The guards saluted crisply and led their prisoners out of the empress' throne room. As they walked back to the lift to the parking garage Annikaya knew Sirius was trying to catch her eye but she ignored him.  
  
The woman on the throne in that room had been so similar and yet totally dissimilar from the friend she had made in grade school. At first Annikaya had been upset and hurt at the treatment they had received from her friend but the memory of empress Nevaria's eyes as she recounted the attack at the theater had worked it's way into her heart with ease. She knew exactly why too. Tragic love stories had always burned the English teacher deeply. But those were only stories. They weren't supposed to happen in real life. All the way back to their cell Annikaya remembered two little girls dreaming of their future loves and the haunted look in one woman's eyes. "We have a problem." Sirius informed Annikaya after having transformed no less than four packets of cracker crumbs into bombs only to have them remain unsuccessful at opening their cell. This was also after the fruitless hour of yelling unlocking spells.  
  
"Another anti-magic barrier?" Annikaya asked glumly, already knowing the answer.  
  
"To outlaw magic you must first have the means to stop it. What's surprising is that they didn't try to break my wand."  
  
"Maybe they have different magic here and didn't know that's what it was." she suggested. She looked around. "So what's the plan now?"  
  
He shrugged. "Don't have anything. But something will turn up. It always does."  
  
His calm unconcern on that matter apparently annoyed her a trifle. "Oh? How can you be so sure?"  
  
Just then the door opened into their cell and Annikaya had to sit back fast to avoid being hit. A woman looked in nervously.  
  
"Come on. Quietly. "  
  
Sirius threw Annikaya a smirk as they followed the woman into the hall. Annikaya wondered at Sirius for so willingly following the woman. After all, it might be a trap instead of a rescue. A shot-while-they-were- escaping or some such. Annikaya eyed their "rescuer" as the other woman led them down the hall to a laundry room with a bright window that looked out onto a manicured lawn.  
  
"Go out the window and to the left until you get to the parking lot. Get in the back of the semi that's parked there. Don't let anyone see you!" She eyed them both fiercely before closing the laundry room door behind her.  
  
"Sirius, are you sure we should-"  
  
"Ah, ah, ah!" he wagged a finger at her admonishingly. "Never question a lady's honor!" Humor and excitement sparkled in his eyes.  
  
"You're enjoying this!" Annikaya grumbled.  
  
Only sometimes he thought but he wouldn't let that get him down now when he was finally starting to have fun. He leaped over the window sill and held out a hand to his diminutive companion, who was struggling to pull herself over.  
  
"Come on." He urged.  
  
"Wait right there mister. They might be looking for us already. I want you to be a dog."  
  
"Good idea."  
  
The woman and the dog crossed the lawns to the parking lot and climbed into the waiting semi with no trouble. Where the semi took them they had no idea and the inside gave them no clue either, for it was empty. When the truck stopped they stayed quietly in the back, waiting. An hour later their waiting paid off as the door cracked open and the woman entered, bearing a wand. The tip of the wand was lit up, illuminating the dark of the truck.  
  
"Nice to see you again Sirius."  
  
"Berlin Bear. Always a pleasure."  
  
Annikaya listened to the odd nickname and wondered at its origins.  
  
"You do get yourself into the biggest messes, don't you?"  
  
"How do you two know each other?" Annikaya asked curiously.  
  
"School mates." Sirius replied. "Now what exactly is going on here friend?"  
  
Berlin Bear sighed. "The empress told you about the dark magic attacks? I don't know how things work where you're from but here those attacks were by a certain He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Things probably wouldn't have gone so far as the ban on magic if it hadn't been for that blasted attack on that theater. With that anti-magic barrier they've got there's no reason to outlaw all magic but their muggle empress was absolutely devastated but the loss of her friend and fiancé. Now at least the death eaters and the like are at least partially confined by their inability to attack but we're limited in our ability to continue as well. What makes it all so ridiculous is that we have our suspicions about her deceased fiancé."  
  
"What's everyone doing about the situation?" Sirius asked before Annikaya could ask her own question.  
  
"Obviously we have a recovery team in place for those who are picked up." She leveled a pointed look at Sirius. "Rosalind, you remember her? She acts as a reporter and is able to get wind of any that might be ours."  
  
Sirius nodded, "I thought I saw her in the throne room but I wasn't sure. And of course you work as their bookie at the station to spring them."  
  
Annikaya jabbed Sirius in the ribs. "No plan, huh? We'll see what comes along?" She turned to the other woman. "You know that he's not the same Sirius you know. We're trying to get home." She briefly described the veil the two were searching for.  
  
Berlin Bear frowned, "You two are in for some trouble then. Nevaria's got the veil frittered away some where. Rosalind did a piece on that a while back. I can see if she knows any more." She stood up and started toward the back of the truck.  
  
"Wait!" Annikaya called, struck by a comment Berlin Bear had made earlier. "What did you mean about having suspicions about Nevaria's fiancé?"  
  
"We're not sure he was killed." Berlin Bear said before she hopped out of the truck. "Rosalind will tell you if you want. You guys stay here." She stopped and looked back thoughtfully before she closed the doors, plunging them back into darkness.  
  
"Sirius." Annikaya's voice came suddenly out of the dark and he almost jumped. "I'm glad we're here together."  
  
"In the dark?" he joked. He felt her hand slip into his own.  
  
"I'm being serious." she reprimanded.  
  
"Sorry. I'm not too good at that." he apologized. He didn't really like being serious either. Still, he had been teasing her quite a bit today.  
  
"What I mean is that, well, I'm not very brave." she confessed. "And I wouldn't know what to do if you weren't here."  
  
Sirius gave her hand a squeeze. "Oh, you'd do alright. But I'm glad too."  
  
"It's weird to think I'm dead here." she mused, changing the subject much to Sirius' relief.  
  
"And were engaged," he reminded her.  
  
She laughed. "I wonder if that means I'm entitled to a diamond. I can't be accused of stealing from myself."  
  
"I would say thinking about diamonds when you're dead is looking on the bright side of things." he said consideringly.  
  
"I suppose." Abruptly she let loose a deep sigh. "Being in the dark always depresses me."  
  
"Lumos." The end of Sirius' wand began to give off a steady white light.  
  
"Hey! Thanks!"  
  
Sirius shrugged. "No problem. We'll just have to make sure while we're here to pick you up a wand."  
  
"Really?" At mention of her own wand her face had lit up brighter than a thousand illuminated wands. Impulsively she gave Sirius a quick tight hug. "Oh, I'm so excited!"  
  
"Here. Why don't you hold my wand for now? Practice." He smiled, putting his wand into her hand.  
  
She took it hesitantly, no doubt remembering the incident with the sparks before, but as she hadn't tried to cast the spell the wand remained as it was. As the lit wand passed from his hand to hers the light fell on her face and he could see that her eyes were completely fixed on the wand, sparkling with wonder and joy. 


	6. Chapter Six

It was awhile later when the back doors of the semi cracked open again. Another woman looked in, her eyes widening as she caught sight of Sirius.  
  
"Dear God. It is you Sirius." she exclaimed.  
  
Sirius saluted cheekily and Annikaya handed him back his wand.  
  
The woman held out her hand to Annikaya. "Rosalind Daily."  
  
"Annikaya Horn."  
  
"You're looking remarkably non-dead." Rosalind commented.  
  
"So I've been told."  
  
"Let's finish this at headquarters, shall we?"  
  
"Floo powder?" Sirius asked. "Annikaya can't apparate."  
  
"Floo? I wish! With the anti-magic barrier the floo gets disrupted. But Tonks managed to score us a port-key."  
  
"Tonks?" Sirius looked vaguely surprised.  
  
"Yeah. She's pretty high up with the ministry now. Her metamorphmagus abilities put her in high demand these days. The muggles can't keep track of her."  
  
Annikaya hadn't been getting much sense out of the conversation but she did know what they both intended when Rosalind held out an old, folded up newspaper.  
  
"Sirius, that isn't like the potato chip bag, is it?"  
  
For a moment Sirius looked confused but then he grinned. "Sorry Annikaya."  
  
"I hate those things!" Annikaya said passionately, remembering what got her into this whole mess in the first place. Rosalind looked at her questioningly. "Bad experience."  
  
Regardless, they all took hold of the newspaper and disappeared. They reappeared in a brightly lit flat.  
  
"Not Grimmauld Place?" Sirius asked, a relieved expression on his face.  
  
Rosalind waved a hand dismissively. "That place was sold ages ago." She led them to the cozy looking couches and indicated they should sit. "I was in the throne room when you were brought in, so I heard what happened to you two. I'll try to answer as many questions as I can."  
  
"We're looking for the veil. Berlin Bear said you knew about it." Annikaya said.  
  
"Its full title is the Veil of Lethe. Several years ago Nevaria managed to get the location of the ministry and attacked it. She made of with a lot of stuff the ministry didn't have time to apparate out with. Frankly, none of our people wanted to touch the thing and were all hoping Nevaria'd fall through."  
  
Annikaya frowned but she didn't say anything. She could understand both sides too well. But of course, she could afford to be objective.  
  
"Anyway, I'm afraid you're out of luck there. She's got everything that so much as makes her sneeze locked up tighter than the crown jewels."  
  
Sirius frowned and asked another question. "How's Harry?"  
  
Annikaya detected the uncertain note in his voice.  
  
"Potter? He's fine. Those anti-magic barriers have been pretty useful when hit comes to him."  
  
"Rosalind..." Annikaya spoke up hesitantly. "Can you tell me more about Nevaria's fiancé? Berlin Bear told us he might not have died."  
  
Rosalind looked a bit surprised at the question. "Sure. His name was Marcus Elgin. As for him not actually being dead, well, it's hard to tell. There were about a hundred people in that particular theater that night. Investigators managed to find traces of all the rest that died except for him. Nevaria swore he'd been beside her before the attack and that she'd seen his dead body after. Nobody ever found the body though."  
  
"Do you think the Death Eaters took his body for some reason? Or he faked it?" Sirius asked.  
  
"No one knows. It seems a bit out of character though for the Death Eaters to want a body."  
  
"Why did they attack there?" Annikaya asked. "I mean, it's not like a theater has any military significance. And I can't imagine too many wizards were out seeing a movie."  
  
Rosalind shifted uncomfortably. "They were only after one specific wizard. However, the theater was more important than you could guess. It didn't hurt anything vital but it did inspire a lot of fear and it killed a lot of muggles. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named hates muggles." "Oh." Annikaya hadn't known that the dark lord hated muggles.  
  
"Do we know who actually led the attack?" Sirius continued.  
  
Rosalind nodded. "Pettigrew. Unfortunately for him and very fortunately for us, Remus Lupin killed him not too long after that."  
  
Sirius' face was dark and his words came out clipped. "Good."  
  
Rosalind grinned. "Oh yes. We all threw him a party. Job well done and all that."  
  
There was a sudden pop behind them as someone apparated in. It was a rather vague looking man who was looking around rather bemused. "Oh, hello Sirius. Heard you were back. Has anyone seen my notes? Seem to have left them here last night. Oh, there they are." He turned his attention back to Sirius. "Dreadfully sorry we sold your place ol' pal. Can't say I miss your mother though. Noisy woman."  
  
"That's alright. Never liked the place much myself. Did me a favor." Sirius replied.  
  
The other man looked pleased. "Quite right. Be seeing you then. Or maybe not." He disapparated as suddenly as he had come. Annikaya noticed he'd forgotten his notes again.  
  
"Anyway, I'll bet if you two could find Marcus that Nevaria'd sort of owe you. Maybe enough to give you a peak at the veil." Rosalind concluded.  
  
They brainstormed that afternoon and evening where they might find Marcus and where they should start to look. Sirius had the most ideas since he was more familiar with the places Death Eaters or runaways frequented.  
  
The next morning they bit Rosalind a polite goodbye and started on their way. Since Annikaya couldn't apparate and they didn't want to bother Tonks again, they took the Knight Bus. Annikaya informed Sirius as they departed that she approved of the bright purple paint job and the gold lettering all over the windshield. Then she fell quiet, trying to assimilate the sights that were so common place in Diagon Alley.  
  
"And all of this is outlawed?" she asked incredulously. "It's...it's wonderful! How could anyone not want this?"  
  
A small group of goblins walked by and her eyes followed them briefly before flitting away to watch an excited child soaring down the street on his broom, his mother trying frantically to get him to come back.  
  
"Keep that up and your eyes will pop out." Sirius told her with a smile as they began walking down the street. It was slow progress making their way down the streets both because they were crowded and because Annikaya would frequently stop to look. Finally Sirius pulled her into one little store. There were stacks of small boxes everywhere and the air had that particular dustiness of old libraries. From the back room an older man came out. He eyed Annikaya up and down professionally.  
  
"Hmmm." A roll of measuring tape unfolded itself and begin flying frantically about her, almost tying itself in knots. The man waited for it to finish and then handed Annikaya one of the boxes. "Just flick it gently." he told her as she lifted the lid.  
  
"It won't explode, or shoot sparks, or anything, will it?" she asked, holding the wand out away from her body.  
  
"No, no. Nothing like that. These things must be done properly."  
  
She flicked the wand like Sirius had shown her before and the spindly chair in the corner was hurled against the wall.  
  
"Not that one then." He pulled down another box while Sirius straightened the chair. This time when she flicked the wand a whole bunch of wand boxes fell clattering to the floor.  
  
"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" She was absolutely mortified and dropped to her knees trying to pick up the scattered wands.  
  
"No, no, dear. Happens all the time. Place is spelled for it." It became apparent what he meant when the wands rose off the floor and re-shelved themselves.  
  
"Now, try this one."  
  
A half hour and a dozen messes later Annikaya was the proud owner of a twelve and a half inch maple wand with phoenix feather core. Sirius suggested she carry it in her pocket but she refused, instead holding on to it and frequently holding it up to admire.  
  
"Where are we going now?" she asked Sirius excitedly.  
  
He stopped and looked at her seriously, figuring now was as good a time as any to tell her. "We're going down past Knockturn alley." He told her. "It's a very unsavory place and none too safe. Just be quiet and follow me. Don't touch anything and don't say anything." He paused and looked her over carefully before transfiguring her clothes into a hooded robe. He flipped the hood over her face. "And keep your hood up. You're too damn cute."  
  
Annikaya's eyes grew wide but she didn't say anything as she followed him into the grimmer sections of wizarding London. It was darker here, whether by choice or accident remained unknown. Annikaya rather thought it was by choice, for it made remaining unseen easier. It also made everything far more sinister. Some of the characters she saw probably enjoyed that added benefit. She tried not to hold her breath against the heavy mildew smell or cringe when she brushed the damp stone. She really wanted a shower when they were done here.  
  
They stopped before an old recessed wooden door.  
  
"When we get in here sit in a table close to the door and don't say anything." he commanded her softly.  
  
She wondered what sort of place it was, for there was no sign but her question was answered when he pushed the door open to reveal a dim and shadowy bar. As he had told her, she sat next to the door, her hood hiding her face while she watched him.  
  
Furtively, for everything appeared furtive here in this place of secrets, Sirius slid up to the bar. She could see him in hushed conversation with another hooded person before her view was blocked by someone sliding into the chair across from her. It was an older man with stringy unkempt hair and bad teeth. He had a long hooked nose and shifty eyes.  
  
"Interested in anything unusual?" he asked in a thin reedy voice. "I've got all sorts of curiosities for the, shall we say, right price?"  
  
Annikaya ignored him, lowering her head to further hide her face, and hoped he'd leave her alone.  
  
"Nothing you need acquired, hmmm? No dragon scale or unicorn hair or veela blood for you, eh?" He continued to pester her while she ran over the theme of her next book in her head. While she was deciding what terrible thing to do to him in the seventh chapter he finally got bored and moved on to someone new.  
  
He had left his empty goblet behind and she watched with disgust as a spider climbed over the lip of the cup and fell onto the table. It skirted a puddle of sticky liquid and skittered over the edge of the table and out of site.  
  
She lifted her gaze to watch Sirius again. He wasn't there anymore. Her heart began to speed up and her breath to quicken before she spotted him deep in conversation at a corner table. Suddenly the other man had his wand pointed at Sirius' chest and he opened his mouth to speak.  
  
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Annikaya said firmly. It was the only spell she knew and her wand had been fortuitously in just the right spot to hit Sirius' assailant before he could hex or curse her friend.  
  
Being as far from Annikaya as he was, the other man had not heard her utter the spell and now he floated above Sirius looking shocked.  
  
Sirius had taken advantage of this to pull out his own wand. "That's right numbskull. I can do magic you've never dreamed of. The name's Sirius Black. Remember that."  
  
"B..Buh..Black?" The other stammered. "But you...you're..." He stopped speaking and just floated there, his eyes bulging wildly.  
  
"Let me tell you pal. I'm ten times more than what the rumors say."  
  
Annikaya lowered the man back to the ground, figuring Sirius had it under control. Sirius and the man sat back down, wand pointed at the other as they continued their soft discussion. The other man's eyes tended to dart around the bar anxiously but every one else was studiously ignoring them, not wanting any trouble.  
  
A few minutes later Sirius got up and left the bar. Annikaya joined him outside.  
  
"Did you learn anything?" she asked him.  
  
Sirius leveled an angry stare at her. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? If you ever do that again I swear I'll stick an acromantula on you!" His face was red with suffused anger.  
  
In contrast Annikaya's features were cast in a stubborn frame. "I'm sorry Sirius but I'm not going to sit by while you're in danger. Especially when I'm in a position to help."  
  
"I didn't need your help!"  
  
"I offered it anyway." she said with that infuriatingly reasonable tone she had sometimes. Why wouldn't he understand? Even if he had been completely safe, she had to help keep him safe. She would have done it for anyone she cared about.  
  
Sirius was staring at her incredulously. "I can't keep you bloody well safe if you won't listen to me!" he yelled.  
  
It was the final straw for her patience and humiliating besides. "I can get out of my own messes!" she yelled back. I may not be a...a wizard but I can still take care of myself! Or do you really think so poorly of me?"  
  
Shock cut off Sirius' next words. When he did speak again his tone was oddly subdued. "Forget it. Let's just go, alright?" He missed the sudden heartbroken look on Annikaya's face as he didn't deny her earlier question. In fact, her question had surprised him because it was so completely untrue but he never thought to say anything about it and that made Annikaya think she'd been correct. She began to feel very small and terrible. Maybe she was just a burden to him. After all, he didn't need her magic to get home. And she had already confessed she wasn't very brave.  
  
She followed numbly behind him as they walked down the dim alleys to three or four strange shops where Sirius spoke in hushed whispers to secretive shop owners.  
  
"Well, looks like we're off to Hogwarts Annikaya. Seems Hagrid might know something." Sirius said jovially after they left the last one.  
  
"Oh."  
  
Sirius noticed her lack of enthusiasm and stopped. "Hey, are you alright? I thought you'd be more excited." He noticed the artfully blank expression on her face and peered worriedly at her.  
  
"Let's just get this over with so you don't have to bother with me again, ok? I know what a burden I am." she replied dully. She just wanted to go home and curl up in bed for a week. She had thought they were friends.  
  
"What are you talking about?" he asked, completely bewildered.  
  
Annikaya was blinking rapidly now and her nose was turning bright pink. "Look Sirius, you obviously don't think much of me so let's just get home and then I'll be on my way."  
  
He was still looking at her as though she'd just told him Lord Voldemort was her dear Uncle Tom. "Whatever gave you that blarmey idea? If you were a bloody hindrance I would have told you. But you've got your head screwed on pretty straight. You're a little strange sometimes but you're ok."  
  
"But what about earlier?"  
  
"Huh? Oh!" He looked at her with an expression of amusement and exasperation. "Annikaya, I don't know when you're going to pull questions like that and expect an answer! I'm a guy.  
  
A sly smile tugged at the corners of Annikaya's face. "I noticed that."  
  
He kept going. "So are we all set here then?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah. I just thought..."  
  
"Can't say that was one of your better thoughts." he teased her.  
  
She grinned and he was glad to see that rather than the expressionless mask of earlier. "Right. Then I think we should go to Hogwarts!" 


	7. Chapter Seven

Annikaya was of course absolutely enthralled with Hogwarts. Since it was summer the grounds were empty and she was able to oogle at the giant squid, the castle, and the quidditch pitch without looking like...well, a muggle.  
  
Sirius led her to a ramshackle cabin on the edge of a deep forest. Annikaya, despite her love of such places, found herself quite unnerved by the dark and unpleasant forest without knowing why.  
  
Sirius knocked on the door of the hut and immediately a dog on the other side began barking and scratching excitedly at the door. A rather distinct voice rose up over that noise, trying to quiet the dog.  
  
"Down boy!"  
  
The door opened a crack and Annikaya had to tilt her head back to find the huge man's face, which was covered in a great bristling black beard.  
  
" 'Ello."  
  
Before he could say more the large dog they had heard squeezed past him ad began to swarm Annikaya and Sirius.  
  
"Don' mind Fang. 'Es jus bein' frien'ly."  
  
Poor Fang seemed a trifle confused by Sirius' scent but Annikaya distracted the big dog by petting it. While she and Fang were thus entertained, Sirius briefly described exactly who they were and why they had stopped by.  
  
Hagrid invited them in and offered them a plate of little biscuits that looked strikingly like rocks. Sirius, taking one look at the suspicious things, hastily explained that a side effect of the veils was a lack of appetite. Hagrid seemed extremely disappointed. Sirius changed the subject by telling him more about their quest for Marcus Elgin.  
  
Annikaya had been paying attention because she didn't know what Sirius had learned in the pub but Fang was rather persistent, laying his head in her lap and gazing soulfully up at her while he drooled. Finally Annikaya gave up and got down on the floor to pet the great brute. Over the dog's enthusiastic panting she still managed to catch most of the conversation even if she didn't understand it all.  
  
It was early evening when the finished.  
  
"Been nice seein' you Sirius." Hagrid said. "You always was a good 'un. Don't imagine I'll be seein' you 'gain."  
  
Annikaya noticed the huge man had pulled out a red handkerchief with white polka dots.  
  
"Bye Fang." she whispered to the dog, patting its head. Fang wagged his whip like tail energetically.  
  
Annikaya gave a long lingering look back at the castle as they left. She wondered when she'd be able to come back. "What are we going to do now?" Annikaya asked as night fell.  
  
Sirius turned a smile to her. "What do you say we get away somewhere for awhile? Say, Morocco?"  
  
"Morocco? What's in Morocco?"  
  
"Oh, just Marcus Elgin."  
  
"Why Morocco?"  
  
At this Sirius' face darkened a bit but his voice was still light and casual. "I'm beginning to have my suspicions about this man." Abruptly he changed topics on her. "You know, Elgin is a city in Scotland."  
  
"Err...really?"  
  
"Mmmhmm." Sirius began to hum merrily under his breath as he continued walking casually down the sidewalk.  
  
"Where are we going?" she asked him.  
  
"Just up here a little ways." he assured her cheerfully. They walked a bit further and then Sirius stopped. "That should be far enough. Now, you're going to learn to apparate."  
  
Annikaya's face was dubious. "Isn't that rather dangerous? Couldn't we take the Knight Bus again?"  
  
Sirius was still being obnoxiously cheerful from finding out where Marcus Elgin was supposed to be. "The Knight Bus doesn't travel well internationally. Makes for a very bumpy ride. Something about the magic field attracts whales. Very strange mammals. I tried to get one as a pet once but my mother wouldn't let me. Right, first things first. Rule one: Don't make mistakes." He grinned broadly at her and Annikaya felt her stomach drop. Sirius Black would be the death of her. Morocco was sunny and the heat shimmered in the air. Annikaya seemed to wilt in the face of such severe temperature and wasn't even able to summons any enthusiasm at her apparating success. Sirius wasn't too comfortable either but he had spent some time in warmer climates trying to stay away from the ministry. In his case it had also been a disguise tactic, as his Azkaban pallor had announced louder than words who he was.  
  
"It should be cooler in Tissraouen." he told her. "It's less crowded for one thing."  
  
"Why did we come here then?" she asked him, a tad grumpy.  
  
"To get used to the climate. Besides, all the way to Tissraouen is a big jump on the first try."  
  
"Where is here anyway?" she asked, eyeing the tall pinkish buildings on either side of them and the massive palms in the distance.  
  
"Taroudannt. It's a pretty major city."  
  
"Is that why Marcus wouldn't be here?"  
  
"Partly. Are you ready to try apparating again?"  
  
Annikaya straightened. "Anything to get out of this heat."  
  
Tissraouen was not cooler. If anything, being further south, it was worse.  
  
Annikaya eyed the fortress like city perched atop the hill. "Sort of looks like a castle."  
  
She noticed Sirius was regarding the city very thoughtfully.  
  
"It does, doesn't it?"  
  
The two of them climbed the hill and entered the city. It became immediately apparent why Marcus had chosen this particular city when the sight of two foreigners in their midst sent the local people scurrying home to peer out their windows and duck fearfully when spotted.  
  
Sirius began swearing thunderously, blistering the already heated air.  
  
"Calm down Sirius."  
  
"They're his early warning device! If he hasn't heard we're looking for him yet..." He swore for a few more minutes before he calmed down. "Besides, who are we going to ask for directions now?"  
  
"There has to be a bar." she suggested rationally. "And if you're lucky Marcus could even be there having a drink, too far gone to care we're coming."  
  
"It'd probably be a scotch on the rocks." Sirius said sourly.  
  
Annikaya eyed him quizzically but he deigned not to answer as they began to search the now empty streets for a bar.  
  
"You know" Annikaya said as they slipped into the slightly cooler bar. "You're a bad influence Sirius Black. I've been to more bars and shadowy places since I met you than the whole rest of my life!"  
  
He smirked. "I know. Isn't it fun?"  
  
He quickly cast a translating spell on the both of them and went to the bar keeper, pulling out a photograph Rosalind had given them. It was a muggle photo showing Marcus and Nevaria in a tight embrace. Both had large smiles on their faces.  
  
Sirius slid the picture across the bar. "Can you tell us if you've seen this man?"  
  
The bar keeper barely glanced at the photo before nodding and telling them that indeed Marcus had been here. He went on. He'd been leaving for Spain, a ticket sticking out of his shirt pocket. Apparently Marcus had somehow known they were coming before they ever even got to Morocco.  
  
Sirius sighed and pocketed the photo. Together he and Annikaya left the bar.  
  
"Random fact." Annikaya started diffidently. "Morocco probably doesn't keep birth certificates. A lot of African countries don't."  
  
" Why do you know that?" he asked her, inwardly shaking his head in amusement at her quirky nature.  
  
"I told you. Random fact. I collect them. Like, did you know that Albert Einstein didn't wear socks?"  
  
"Hmmm. Well, did you know that dugbogs like to eat mandrakes?"  
  
Annikaya had opened her mouth to deliver another fact but now she stopped. "Really?" She paused. "What's a dugbog?"  
  
Sirius laughed. Through less than legal means Sirius was able to pinpoint their fleeing target to somewhere in Barcelona. That presented its own unique problems, for they couldn't apparate where regular muggles might see them and Barcelona was a busy city. They were only able to go after a trip back to Taroudannt where they apprehended a computer and found the address of an apartment for rent. Risking interrupting a realtor, they landed neatly in the bedroom. After checking that the coast was clear they were on their way.  
  
Annikaya grinned as she peered over Sirius' shoulder at the map of the city.  
  
"Maybe we'll get to go to Greece next. I've always wanted to go there."  
  
"I hope not. I'd like to just catch him and be done with this." Sirius refolded the map and tried to stuff it in his pocket but it caught on the picture of Marcus and Nevaria. He pulled out the picture and Annikaya took it from him.  
  
"I'll hold on to it. You keep the map."  
  
Sirius shrugged and stuffed the map back into his pocket.  
  
Annikaya smoothed the photo and regarded it thoughtfully. "Nevaria's changed a lot since this was taken. It's not too recent."  
  
"I know. It's too bad that's the only picture we have of Marcus. It might make it harder to find him."  
  
Annikaya turned her attention to the city now, the massive noble architecture that gave such presence. "Where to now, man-with-the-map?"  
  
He rolled his eyes. "Oh boy." He paused, considering. "I think we'll start with the Gothic Quarter. It's one of the oldest sections and that seems to be a pattern with this guy."  
  
"Gothic Quarter? Cool." Sirius felt right at home in the Gothic Quarter of the city. Surrounded by cool stone and ancient carvings was quite similar to being in the drafty halls of Hogwarts. As the buildings tended to rise tall on either side, casting looming shadows, it added to the effect. In fact, he realized he felt a bit homesick. He'd loved Hogwarts with a passion during his time there. It had been an escape from his thrice- blasted death eating family and had been a place to be with his friends and be happy. When they got out of here he would have to go back for a visit. He'd have to be in dog-form but he didn't think Remus would mind taking him to check up on Harry.  
  
With that decided, his attention turned to other matters. He noticed Annikaya gazing about them with a slightly wistful look on her face.  
  
"What's the matter?"  
  
"I don't know." she said lightly. "This place just makes me feel...It seems it should be more."  
  
She didn't seem to know quite what she meant but Sirius understood. It was more than a homesickness he'd felt. The stones and the buildings here had an age about them and with that age came a longing that pervaded the very air. This whisper feeling even extended over the colorful interruptions of more modern human touch.  
  
Sirius straightened, forcing himself to shake off its glamour that he was sure originated in the faerie realm.  
  
"We need to find a directory or something. A housing list. Do muggles keep that sort of info?"  
  
Annikaya nodded. "It's called a phone book. And we're going to have to be able to speak Spanish." It took them awhile to find a phone book but when they did there were only three "Elgin, M." listed. Sirius had growled at this and said it felt like a trap.  
  
"You're being paranoid." Annikaya replied, hitting him lightly on the shoulder.  
  
They were sitting on the edge of the fountain in the Placa de Sant Just and Sirius pretended her hit had unbalanced him and that he was on the verge of falling in.  
  
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." she cautioned. "They probably have a fine for that."  
  
"I'd like to see them figure out the exchange rate." he laughed, pulling out a wizard knut. "Here, make a wish." He flipped the coin to her.  
  
Her lips quirked into a grin and she closed her eyes briefly as she made her wish. Then she threw the bronze coin into the air, where it caught the sun before plunking into the fountain with a tiny shower of drops. Annikaya was still eyeing Sirius with a slightly mischievous look on her face.  
  
Sirius stood. "Well, are you ready to check out these addresses?" Annikaya was beginning to wish she had a pair of ear plugs. The owner of the first apartment on their list was actually a Margaret Elgin and Margaret was not happy to see them. Screaming in Spanish at them, she accused them of being robbers, murderers, and vagabonds casing out her place. Then she decided they just wanted to see her home so they could offer a better price to the landlady and steal her apartment. Regardless, the woman had obviously decided they were miscreants and so she stood denouncing them as loudly as she could.  
  
Other tenants had gathered because of the noise but they were obviously used to Ms. Elgin's temper, because none of them stepped in. The whole while Sirius stood there patiently, an expression of boredom on his face and Annikaya wondered why they didn't just leave.  
  
Ms. Elgin finally paused for breath and Sirius spoke up. "Are you quite through? You're only embarrassing yourself."  
  
The woman's eyes widened in shock and her face turned a dark shade of purple. She opened her mouth to scream at him some more.  
  
"I guess not. Oh, and be careful. That's really not good on your heart. Come on, Annikaya."  
  
They left the still screeching woman behind. Perhaps they should have taken the screeching woman as an omen. Certainly Sirius, with his vast experience with his mother, should have realized it was an inauspicious start. But by the time either of them recognized the danger they were right in the middle of it.  
  
The second apartment had seemed so normal on the outside and Sirius had thought once again they'd gone to the wrong place. Still he rang the door bell and waited. But when the door opened, staring him in the face was a very shocked Lucius Malfoy. Past him Sirius could see several other of Lucius' associates he'd rather not play nice with.  
  
"Ava-" Malfoy started and Sirius ducked and kicked the man hard.  
  
"Stupify!"  
  
Annikaya immediately understood the ramifications of those two spells and took off back down the hall, only to see more black robed and hooded men come boiling out of the stair well. Sirius grabbed her sleeve and tugged her back.  
  
The two took off running the other direction, followed by some very angry and murderous men.  
  
"The roof!" Sirius ordered Annikaya, ducking a particularly close killing curse. "I'll buy you some time."  
  
"Like hell you will!" she informed him. "Stupify!" The last was aimed behind them and missed wildly but it still made the Death Eaters duck.  
  
Sirius couldn't waste any time to glare at her. He'd just have to remember not to do spells around her that he didn't want her to remember.  
  
The two raced up the stairs to the roof. A red beam of light caught the edge of his arm and he felt it go numb. Probably Avery Knott, he thought. He's one of the only ones to do stunning spells instead of the Avada.  
  
The reached the roof and the fire door shut behind them. Sirius fired the immobulus charm at the door knob, hoping it would trip up their pursuit for awhile since they would be expecting a locking charm.  
  
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Annikaya commanded and they sailed over to the next roof top.  
  
"We can get lost in the crowds." Sirius said as they ducked behind a chimney column.  
  
"Not if we want to keep the people safe. Do you think crowds would stop them?" The sound of the fire door exploding cut off any chance of reply and Sirius and Annikaya went leaping a few more roofs until they landed on a spire of the Sans Just i Pastor Cathedral. They slid and scurried over the uneven surfaces looking for a window or balcony.  
  
Sirius kept throwing up shielding charms on various innocent parts of the building as he went, for the magical signatures would throw off pursuit and the shields themselves would have to be taken down before anyone could get by.  
  
"We've got about five minutes." he told Annikaya. "You know how to do the levitation spell. Get out of here and get somewhere safe."  
  
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "I will not leave you here alone." she hissed.  
  
"Merlin, not this again! Just go!" He was starting to get angry.  
  
"I will not!" she said loudly and defiantly.  
  
"Why the bloody hell not? I'm trying to save your fool life!" he roared at her.  
  
"Maybe I don't need you to save my life! And why the hell are you so obsessed with protecting me anyway?" she shouted right back.  
  
"Because I care about you, you little idiot!" and he smashed his lips down on hers. Her body pressed against his, her fingers twisting at the shoulder of his robes, pulling him closer. He felt like he was on fire. They broke apart gasping for air.  
  
"What was that for?!" Annikaya yelled at him, the fire still running in her veins.  
  
"You wouldn't shut up!" he bellowed back.  
  
"Well maybe you should shut up!" she shouted and dragged his head back down to her lips. There was another explosion behind them as one of the shield spells went down.  
  
"Oops. Almost forgot about them." Sirius said mildly and Annikaya laughed breathlessly as they struggled over the sloping roof to get further away. 


	8. Chapter Eight

Then Annikaya stepped wrong and fell, taking Sirius with her. The two of them skidded down the spire and toward the street so deathly far below. There was a sickening jolt as they caught the edge of the roof and then they were in free fall.  
  
"Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa!" Sirius shouted and the two of them halted in midair. He noticed Annikaya was white and trembling, not that he was much better. He felt like his heart was going to leap right out of his chest and strangle him. After all he'd put it through today he might not blame it.  
  
Gently he began raising them back up to the roof. It wasn't the safest place for either of them but it did keep all the innocent muggles safe. Then Sirius noticed the eaves of the roof that framed a small square window. There was just enough room under those eaves for someone to remain hidden. Wand out in front of him Sirius maneuvered Annikaya and himself into place. He noticed Annikaya was starting to look a little better.  
  
"Are there concealment charms?" she asked. "We don't want to be seen from the street."  
  
"Good thinking." He said something in Latin but Annikaya didn't notice any change.  
  
"Err...did it work?"  
  
He nodded and then they froze as they heard footsteps above them. These footsteps were quickly joined by others and there was a great deal of shuffling.  
  
The voice of Lucius Malfoy rang out. "Stop that you fools! Can't you see they've gotten away? Now you'll see how your lord punishes incompetence!"  
  
"B-But..."  
  
The elder Malfoy's voice was silky and low. "Yes Crabbe?"  
  
The other man said nothing.  
  
"I thought so."  
  
There was a popping noise followed shortly by several more and Sirius let out the breath he'd been holding.  
  
"Did they apparate?" Annikaya asked so softly he barely heard her.  
  
"Yes. We can go now."  
  
"Why didn't we apparate?" she asked.  
  
"It's not safe to do that sort of thing when you're being chased. For one thing, it's hard to concentrate and very easy to splice yourself. Second, you're very vulnerable in the seconds before."  
  
He began to lower them when suddenly the window opened. They froze, hoping the concealment charm would hold.  
  
"Well, are you going to come in or are you going to keep floating there all day?" An amused voice from inside said.  
  
Not knowing what waited for them, Sirius and Annikaya slipped into the open window. Annikaya, by dint of her smaller size, was able to slip through the window with ease. Sirius had a bit more trouble and stumbled slightly when he landed on his feet, only to be steadied by the smaller woman.  
  
"What a very cute couple you make." their host said.  
  
Annikaya's hand squeezed Sirius' and she grinned cheerfully.  
  
Sirius eyed the man across the room from them. He had a long jacket on as well as a hat. The jacket had a high collar and was buttoned at the top, a pair of sunglasses folded over the button. The man was also immediately recognizable as Marcus Elgin.  
  
"Elgin."  
  
"Sirius. Annikaya. Nice to see you again. Although I was under the impression you were dead." "Actually, we're not who you think we are." Annikaya said, her brow knitted as she thought how best to proceed.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
Sirius noticed Marcus stood ready near the exit and spoke up. "Hear us out before you bolt Elgin."  
  
Briefly he sketched in their tale to the other man. Marcus listened gravely and Annikaya noticed the same haunted look in his eyes she'd seen in her friend's.  
  
"So you see, we were hoping you'd come back with us and convince Nevaria to let us through the veil." Sirius concluded.  
  
"No."  
  
Sirius blinked. "You're damn lucky we know you're not a Death Eater and don't just drag you back anyway."  
  
Marcus began pacing on the other side of the room, following the shadow edges of the sunlight on the floor.  
  
"I'm very sorry I can't help you. You're both good people and I don't like seeing you in this situation any more than you do."  
  
He lifted a hand to straighten his hat, a nervous gesture, and then tugged on the dark leather gloves he wore.  
  
Sirius' eyes narrowed, taking in the other man's concealing outfit in the warm weather they were experiencing.  
  
"Why are the Death Eaters after you?"  
  
"They want to kill me. Not that unusual an agenda for them after all." Marcus continued pacing.  
  
Sirius didn't seem convinced and was still eyeing Elgin suspiciously. Annikaya was watching Marcus' feet trace the path of shadows on the floor. And that was when it hit her.  
  
"You're a vampire, aren't you?" Both Marcus and Sirius looked up, surprised. A regretful look passed over Marcus' face.  
  
"I suppose the clothes are sort of a give away."  
  
"And your predilection for old things." Sirius chipped in. It all made a lot more sense now.  
  
"Why don't you start with the theater?" Annikaya suggested, sitting down cross-legged on the dusty floor. Marcus remained standing and Sirius leaned casually against the wall.  
  
"Actually it goes a bit before that." Marcus said, sighing. He turned to Sirius. "You would probably know that Voldemort recruited the vampires to join him. Most went along with this because Voldemort promised easy feeding. But...Nevaria...I declined to join. It didn't go over well and Voldemort's been looking for me ever since."  
  
"So the attack on the theater was designed to kill you?" Sirius asked. There was still something missing from that scenario.  
  
Marcus looked surprised by the question. "Oh no. Apparently it was to get rid of you too."  
  
"Me?! I was there?"  
  
Marcus was again looking at him oddly. "Yes. I thought you knew."  
  
"We knew Annikaya was but we didn't know I was."  
  
Marcus shrugged. "Anyway, I managed to escape before they found me and I've been on the run ever since."  
  
"But what about the anti-magic barriers? Couldn't they keep you safe?" Annikaya asked.  
  
Sirius was already shaking his head before Marcus answered.  
  
"No. For one thing, once you're past the barrier you can do magic again, so I'd only be safe from long distance casting. The barriers aren't portable either. They need a sizeable generator."  
  
"What if we made you unplottable? No one could find you and you could come back with us." Sirius said.  
  
"Nevaria would still be in danger then and I won't do that." Marcus' hands were unconsciously clenched into fists and the thought of the woman he loved in danger. He sighed. "I'm very sorry. I've been over all of this a million times. It's the only way. I truly wish I could have helped you two."  
  
Annikaya saw the look in his eyes, the one that said he'd let the whole world end in flames to protect Nevaria. It was all the love several centuries of life could teach. She shivered under that intensity.  
  
"We'll find a different way home." she told him.  
  
"Don't tell her you saw me. It'd be best if she didn't know." He pulled up the collar of his jacket and put on the sunglasses. Now the shadows across his face were complete and he went to the door. "Good luck." And he was gone. Sirius kicked the wall angrily. "Damn!"  
  
"Don't swear in a church!" Annikaya exclaimed, sounding scandalized.  
  
He glared stormily at her. "The man's being unreasonable!"  
  
"Really? Is it anything you wouldn't have done for your godson?"  
  
He glared at her again. He knew he was being irrational but he was angry and frustrated and Elgin was a nice fat target. Then she had to go and ruin his tirade before he even got started. Sirius turned away from her clear eyed gaze and went back to muttering. When he tired of that, he slid down the wall until he was seated next to the quiet woman.  
  
"I'm sorry it's taking so long to get us home." he apologized, knowing she had more of a home than he and that she must be missing it dreadfully.  
  
She surprised him yet again. "Don't be sorry. This isn't so bad." She turned to regard him thoughtfully for a moment. "In fact, I don't think I'd have missed it. I get to see exciting sights, learn about magic, and be with someone I like. There are worse ways to spend one's time."  
  
Sirius managed a wan smile through his disappointment. "Thanks for the compliment."  
  
They sat in silence for awhile, pondering what they should do next. Neither got much accomplished, for it had been a busy day and it was beginning to catch up with them.  
  
Annikaya was still trying to think up another solution when she felt Sirius' head land softly on her shoulder, quiet snores issuing forth. The poor man had been wearing himself out worrying about how to get home to Harry. Annikaya smiled affectionately and pushed his hair back away from her cheek. Closing her own eyes she hoped no one decided to use this room until they'd both caught some well deserved rest. Annikaya awoke to the not very pleasant feeling of being tickled on the nose by her own ponytail. She cracked her eyes open to see Sirius grinning at her charmingly.  
  
"Mmm. What time is it?"  
  
"Early morning I believe. We slept right through." He glanced at the window to confirm.  
  
Annikaya yawned and snuggled closer against his side. "Too early. G'night."  
  
"I don't think so!" He said, nudging her in the ribs. "Come on."  
  
Obediently she sat up straighter, her hair sticking up in funny tufts from sleeping. He grinned and tugged one messy strand. With an amused look on her face Annikaya reached over and smoothed his hair which had also, unbeknownst to him, been sticking up.  
  
"Right. So why did you see the need to wake me up when I was happily asleep?" Her tone was still one of amused affection.  
  
"It's time for my walk." He joked and promptly turned to his dog form.  
  
"As long as we don't have to stop at every fire hydrant."  
  
He wagged his tail and even in this form she could see the mischief in his eyes.  
  
"Forget it or I'll have you neutered!" she threatened.  
  
He growled and she laughed. "Well, shall we go out through the church or back out through the window?" she asked.  
  
Sirius shifted back. "Lets do the window. We don't want to have to explain to the monks or priests or whatever why we slept in their cathedral last night."  
  
"What? You don't think they'd buy the idea that we were on the run from dark wizards who were hunting a friendly vampire?" Annikaya grinned and levitated them out the window to the deserted streets below. Actually the streets weren't quite deserted. Besides a half dozen pigeons, a rather startled man nursing a hang over from the night before caught sight of the two as they lowered themselves to the ground. He stared with wide eyes.  
  
"But I'm not drunk anymore!" he whimpered.  
  
"Sure you are." Sirius said kindly and suddenly one of the pigeons was a glass of whiskey which Sirius handed to the startled man. "Ogden's fire whiskey. Enjoy!" he said cheerily and began walking off, Annikaya following. When she looked back over her shoulder she was the man watch them with wild eyes for awhile before he drained the glass in one gulp.  
  
"That wasn't very nice." she chided Sirius gently.  
  
"I need to take my frustration out on someone." he said philosophically, his hands deep in his pockets.  
  
She didn't say anything, knowing instinctively that if she acknowledged their current predicament they'd only become more depressed. After a bit she asked, "After you transfigured it, was the drink itself still magical?"  
  
"Yes. Ogden's is made with a few magic ingredients."  
  
She frowned, "No, that's not quite what I meant. If...if you had turned the pigeon into, say, coffee would the drink still have been magical?"  
  
"Oh! Well, no. It would have been regular coffee. Actually, there's a potion that can keep it that way too. You know, sort of repel further magic."  
  
"Like those barrier things Nevaria's got?" she asked as they walked down the now busier streets hand in hand.  
  
"Sort of but not quite. That's probably the basis of her wall things though. This potion removes an object from all magical influences forever."  
  
"Really? I suppose it's fairly common then. You know, for defense. Drink a little tonic and no one can ever use that killing curse on you."  
  
Sirius stared at her in horror. "Are you kidding?! It removes your magic too! And as for using it on objects, what if you need to change it later? The spell's permanent."  
  
"Oh! I didn't know it'd take your magic too. That'd be a nasty surprise."  
  
They stopped and watched a street artist for awhile, the painter's hands skimming over his work with grace and precision. Sirius was still thinking.  
  
"Actually, it's a very rare potion. I only know of it because Arthur Weasley was talking about it once. Every so often his department has to use it on certain items to keep the muggles safe. Wizards have a tendency to want to mess with the metro for some reason."  
  
"So they just pour this potion on it and no one can magic the metro anymore?" she asked.  
  
"So I understand."  
  
"And there's no way to reverse it?"  
  
"No. That's part of what makes it so dangerous. Removing something from magic forever is a serious matter."  
  
"I'm sure the muggles Voldemort's after wouldn't think it too high a price."  
  
"But then you'd be robbing potential wizards of magic too! That sort of loss is a part of one's soul." Sirius pointed out.  
  
"What about adults? There can't be too many adult muggles getting killed who have potential."  
  
Sirius' eyes widened. "Adults! That's it!" Excited, he spun Annikaya about, laughing delightedly.  
  
Annikaya was still confused. "What's it? Sirius?" People were staring at them.  
  
Sirius stopped his insane dancing. "Nevaria and Eglin are adults. They don't have magic. Well, except for that whole vampire thing. But they don't need magic. We give them the potion, Nevaria gets both Elgin and no magic and we get the veil!"  
  
"But how would we even begin to look for him again? He could be anywhere by now!"  
  
He winked at her. "I know many things." He paused. "I think we're going to have to talk to a potions master and the only one I know..." he groaned.  
  
"What is it?" she was concerned now.  
  
"He's a git. And he doesn't like me too much."  
  
"Why do I sense a history of practical jokes here?" Annikaya asked rhetorically.  
  
"Don't judge until you've met the greasy bat." 


	9. Chapter Nine

The 'greasy bat' was, like Hagrid, staying at Hogwarts over the summer, which meant that Annikaya got to see the inside of the castle too. This made the trip down to the dungeons take considerably longer than usual, for she had to stop and talk to every painting on the way as well as ride the moving staircase no less than three times. Sirius was remarkably impressed with her self restraint.  
  
He knocked on the door to Snape's private quarters and watched the door crack open to illuminate the other man's hawk-like nose and hooded eyes. Those eyes narrowed angrily upon sighting Sirius Black.  
  
"Black. Come back from the dead to bother me some more? Heaven doesn't want you?"  
  
Sirius bit his tongue, knowing he needed the other man's help.  
  
"Actually, we just stopped by from a parallel universe and we need some potions advice."  
  
"I refused in your universe? I have excellent taste." Snape's voice was silken with a cutting edge to it.  
  
"If you have such wonderful taste why don't you ever wash your hair?"  
  
"At least my taste didn't make me friends with someone who'd send me to Azkaban." Snape's voice was becoming more annoyed and snarky by the moment.  
  
"At least I have friends! Ouch!" Sirius turned to glare at Annikaya, who'd just kicked him rather savagely in the shin.  
  
"Be nice!"  
  
She turned to the surprised potions master. "Excuse me sir but we'd really like your help. We just need some information on a potion that will help us get back home."  
  
Snape pretended to consider. "I think I'd rather like to see Black stuck here suffering for his own incompetence."  
  
"But then you'd be stuck with him too." Annikaya pointed out logically.  
  
"Ah yes. You do have a point. Proceed."  
  
Annikaya stumbled through a description of the potion and their question about the effects it would have on a vampire.  
  
"You're referring to Reinfold's Draught. The effects on a creature of magical nature are hard to predict. Depending on the strength of the magical nature, the vampire would either remain a vampire but be immune to all other magic, or revert to being a human mortal immune to magic. Does that answer your question?"  
  
"Yes. Thank you so much! Now, do you know how we might get enough for two people?"  
  
Snape raised an eyebrow. "I do not need to tell you the repercussions of a person taking such a draught. Even Black is not so dangerously stupid as that."  
  
Sirius growled low in his throat and Sirius threw him a quick look to make sure he hadn't shifted to his canine form but he hadn't.  
  
"It's in the nature of a trade." Annikaya elaborated. "We give the potion to a muggle adult and her fiancé and we get the means home."  
  
She could see Snape trying to piece together the entire truth rapidly. When he spoke again it was addressed to Sirius.  
  
"Perhaps you should administer the potion to your godson instead, Black. It might keep him out of trouble." He turned to Annikaya. "Come then. We will go to my classroom."  
  
She continued smiling politely as the potions master gathered the ingredients, all the while directing cutting comments at her partner. Every once in awhile Sirius would become incensed and fire a return volley which would cause Annikaya to intervene. She wasn't as quick to interfere in the classroom though, for her natural curiosity led her to watch the creation of the Reinfold's Draught with wide-eyed intensity. Due to the dangerous properties of the potion, it was brewed in a very large cauldron to prevent splashes and Snape used thick gloves and tongs to pour the potion into two small vials.  
  
"Don't expect me to help if you have problems with your own folly." He carefully handed the two vials with the pale pink tinted liquid to her.  
  
"What do I owe you?" Annikaya asked, knowing the ingredients couldn't be free.  
  
Snape managed to sneer at Sirius without even looking at him. "Consider it a reward for trying to train the mutt."  
  
Sirius began muttering under his breath but Annikaya only caught the word 'Snivellus.' She pretended she hadn't heard it.  
  
"Thank you very much sir."  
  
They exited the dungeons and began the trek back to where they could apparate, the two precious vials safely stowed away.  
  
"Now there is a prime example of the nature versus nurture debate." Annikaya mused.  
  
"Come again?"  
  
"It's a teacher psychology thing. Is Snape that way because of genetics or environment?"  
  
"Who cares? It's Snivellus."  
  
Annikaya frowned but didn't admonish him as he'd expected. Instead she turned worried eyes on him.  
  
"You're not upset that I didn't defend you, are you? I didn't want him to get mad and refuse to help us." The concern and worry in her face looked like it was enough to give her a stomach ache at least.  
  
"I'm not mad. You're probably right." He dropped a light kiss on her lips and watched as a soft smile formed on her face.  
  
"We could go back and then you could do that again." She suggested.  
  
He obliged her anyway.  
  
"How are we going to find Marcus now?" Annikaya asked Sirius when they got to the end of Hogwarts' anti-apparating wards.  
  
Sirius smirked, obviously impressed with his own intelligence. "I just happen to have cast a little spell on our dear friend Marcus. A perfectly innocent tracking spell only I can follow."  
  
"I thought you couldn't do that." Annikaya commented, remembering the spell Sirius had used to track her so long ago through the last veil.  
  
"It works because he's a vampire." Sirius explained, still eager to pat himself on the back. Annikaya didn't mind, as it had been good planning not to let the vampire just go.  
  
"Shall we?" he asked and the two apparated away.  
  
Surprisingly, the two travelers found themselves in front of a rather ramshackle building just as Marcus Elgin was exiting. He saw them from across the street and even in the evening dusk they could see the instant of surprise and worry before he began to cross the street.  
  
Sirius nodded toward the building and spoke softly to Annikaya. "Wonder what he was doing at a homeless shelter."  
  
Annikaya was startled and looked the place over again, for she wouldn't have guessed that's what it was. "How'd you know that's what it is?" she asked.  
  
Sirius' voice was casual but Annikaya could tell it was feigned by the way he hunched his shoulders imperceptibly. "Ran away from home once or twice."  
  
Before Annikaya could say anything Marcus had joined them.  
  
"How did you find me again?" His tone was worried, for if they could find him, maybe so could the Death Eaters and his own revenge-seeking people.  
  
Sirius held up a hand. "Don't worry. You're safe. But we need to talk."  
  
"This had better not become a daily routine." the other man said, sounding tired and frustrated.  
  
"With any luck we'll be gone soon, so I hope not." Annikaya quipped.  
  
Elgin grimaced. "Alright. Come on. We can't talk here."  
  
He led them through darkened streets that could have belonged in any town to a small apartment. The apartment was sparsely furnished with a television set, stacks of books in the corners, a table and chairs, and a computer but little else. There were no paintings on the walls, no comfortable couches, or potted plants.  
  
Marcus pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, his movements belying a weariness that had not been as evident at their prior meeting.  
  
Sirius, taking the initiative, began to speak. "We have a deal for you. These two vials..." Annikaya placed the rose colored potion on the table. "for an introduction at court."  
  
Marcus lifted one brow, a poker face betraying nothing. Of course, he'd had millennia to practice such an expression.  
  
"Reinfold's Draught." Annikaya said quietly. "It negates magic. And we have two vials." She didn't put any extra emphasis on the last, but the implications were still clear.  
  
"And my...condition?"  
  
At this Sirius hesitated. Which would Elgin prefer? "Depending on the strength, you'll either remain as you are or become mortal."  
  
"Who brewed it?"  
  
"Severus Snape."  
  
A smile ghosted across the vampire's features. "A man with many vampire- like qualities."  
  
Annikaya watched Sirius out of the corner of her eye and fought not to grin, for Sirius was clearly suppressing a scathing comment at Snape's expense.  
  
Marcus' attention returned to the two vials before him. The overhead light shone through them, casting strange flowerlike shapes on the table. The poker face slipped and a stark longing, an old pain, shone out of his eyes. "Why me? Why not just give both vials to her?"  
  
"Because I love her too." Annikaya said softly. "And she needs you."  
  
Decisions and choices warred across his face.  
  
He took the two vials.  
  
They went back to Rosalind to figure out how to get an audience with Nevaria without her guards standing by ready to arrest them. Rosalind directed them to a woman named Tumbleweed. Tumbleweed worked for Nevaria but was also a member of the Order of the Phoenix. It seemed to be a catching affliction she told them with a grin.  
  
"You could get St. Mungo's to fix that. Rare magical afflictions unit." Sirius said blandly.  
  
Tumbleweed pulled a long face and sighed dramatically. "Only one cure-a job with a higher salary!"  
  
All teasing aside, Tumbleweed was quick to get their audience. Hinting that the visitors had vital information against magic and feared retribution, which was true in a sense, Tumbleweed even got the guards placed outside the audience chamber. However, knowing a little of what they planned to discuss with Her Royal Majesty, Tumbleweed declined accompanying them.  
  
"Unlike some, I don't have a habit of getting tossed in the slammer," she grinned at Sirius, who mock growled. Then she slipped away as the throne room doors were pulled open by the two door men.  
  
Cloaked and hooded, Marcus, Sirius, and Annikaya waited until the doors had shut again before they approached the dais. They didn't want Nevaria to see them while anyone was in hearing range and, although she probably had a bodyguard or two hidden away, odds were they wouldn't attack unless there was a direct threat to the Queen. The three bowed low when they reached the dais where Nevaria sat, gowned once again in blue satin.  
  
"You may uncover yourselves friends. You are in safe company here."  
  
"You will forgive us if one of our party declines Your Majesty. While we are friends, even in private you would be compelled toward action should our companion's face be revealed." Sirius said diplomatically from beneath his cowl.  
  
Curiosity lit in the Queen's face but she nodded. Annikaya let out the breath she'd been holding, for the Nevaria she knew hated surprises and always indulged her curiosity.  
  
Gravely Sirius and Annikaya lowered their hoods and watched Nevaria's face pale and then set into an expressionless mask.  
  
"Before you get upset, Em'ly, we have a deal for you." Annikaya purposely called on the secret childhood name. "If you don't accept we'll leave."  
  
Nevaria said nothing so Annikaya plunged ahead. "We have a potion, Reinfold's Draught. If you take it, you'll be immune to all magic forever. No one will ever be able to cast spells on you or anything. The Death Eaters won't be able to hurt you. In exchange we just need one minute with the Veil of Lethe-an artifact you confiscated from the Ministry of Magic. It will take us home to our universe."  
  
"How do I know it really works?" The other woman's voice was still emotionless and cold. Marcus was shifting restlessly behind them in distress.  
  
"Whether you believe I'm Annikaya or not, you must know I've harmed no one since I've gotten here. I haven't lied to you."  
  
"You have!" Nevaria burst out.  
  
Now Annikaya was worried and confused. "How?" The question was urgent.  
  
"You told me his name was Stephen Malcolm. I know who he is! I know he's Sirius Black! You should have known I'd know!"  
  
Sirius spoke up. "If you know so much then you'd know I spent some time in prison for a crime I didn't commit. Which means I'm not in the habit of giving out truthful information when wrongly imprisoned again."  
  
Elgin shifted again and Sirius shifted his head almost imperceptibly. They didn't want to stretch Nevaria's credulity too fast here.  
  
Annikaya pulled out the two vials of rosey liquid and held them in her open palm. "Do we have a deal?"  
  
The lost look was back in Nevaria's eyes. "Potions won't bring me back what I lost." She said softly, her voice suddenly a bit hoarse.  
  
Annikaya's smile was sad. "No, they won't. The me from here will still be dead and you'll still be here."  
  
"I don't want to be 'kaya."  
  
Sirius wondered if she meant here as queen or here alive but Annikaya seemed to understand.  
  
"I know."  
  
"I have to be, to make sure it doesn't happen again to someone else."  
  
"I know. But you can't get rid of all magic Nevaria. There are a lot of good witches and wizards out there trying to stop it too."  
  
"You didn't see them. You didn't see the bodies. Your body. His." She still couldn't say his name and even thinking of him set her to trembling.  
  
Unconsciously Marcus lifted a hand to her who seemed so far away. "Nev." He broke away from Sirius and Annikaya and knelt at her feet. "Nev."  
  
Nevaria's lip quivered. "Mar..Marcus?" She leaned forward and pushed his hood back onto his shoulders. Time seemed frozen as he gazed into her eyes, his own so full of emotion. Nevaria inhaled deeply and then fell sobbing into his arms. "You smell the same!" she sobbed incoherently.  
  
Sirius turned to Annikaya to suggest giving the two reunited lovers a bit of time and noticed that Annikaya had streams of tears running down her cheeks.  
  
"Oh!" she said with a hitch in her voice. "That's so beautiful!"  
  
Sirius smiled and shook his head. "Come on, you."  
  
Annikaya sniffled loudly and, hand in his, left the audience chamber.  
  
Tumbleweed was waiting for them when they came out. "Well, I don't have any orders to arrest you yet, troublemaker."  
  
Sirius sighed dramatically. "I'm afraid there's still time 'Weed." We just sprang the old fiancé on Her Majestic-ness." He paused. "Solitary confinement isn't too bad."  
  
Tumbleweed didn't question them on Marcus, only laughed and invited them to play exploding snaps while they waited. An illusion charm made it look like they were playing an innocent card game while in truth they practiced magic in the very heart of Nevaria's anti-magic castle. Sirius loved that.  
  
The game started to suffer after about a half hour as they began to wonder how things were progressing. At the end of another half hour period the door men on some unnoticed signal pulled open the doors and beckoned Sirius and Annikaya to enter. Inside Marcus was sitting on the edge of the dais holding hands with Nevaria. Both looked more relaxed than Sirius could remember seeing them and Nevaria was smiling. Her crown was lying in Marcus' lap and he was toying absently with it using his free hand.  
  
Nevaria spoke without preamble. "I..." She looked down at Marcus and smiled. "We will take your deal."  
  
Annikaya grinned and held out the two vials which Elgin took gravely.  
  
"Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay though? You could certainly help me redo this whole magic thing."  
  
"Sorry Nevaria but I'd rather not live someone else's life, even if it is mine." Annikaya said, then paused as she thought that out. "You know what I mean."  
  
Nevaria sighed. She did understand. She summonsed her guards and ordered them to escort them all to the veil. A half dozen uniformed men surrounded them, leading them through the palace to the lift and to a previously unseen floor. More guards were stationed at checkpoints along the hall, guarding different magical artifacts.  
  
Sirius looked distinctly uncomfortable being surrounded by so many of the peacekeeping force. Annikaya could see it in the way his fingers twitched nervously for his wand.  
  
Finally they stopped in front of one door. The guard standing beside it took a large key and turned the lock, pushing the door open. The room inside was bare except for the fluttering ragged veil and silent except for the whispers of the artifact.  
  
Nevaria shivered. "Are you sure you have to go? It looks like something an alien would leave behind to help take over the world."  
  
Annikaya laughed, for Nevaria'd always been more inclined toward science and thus aliens than magic  
  
Sirius answered for her. "Sorry Your Majesty. We have responsibilities."  
  
Annikaya gave Nevaria a hug, watching the guards tense, and then impulsively gave Marcus a hug, as well. Marcus was surprised but he hugged her back.  
  
"You two take care." She told them.  
  
Sirius settled for a handshake. And then they stepped through the veil. 


	10. Chapter Ten

They were standing in a cold, dark hallway. After a few seconds, as if acclimating to their presence, torches on the walls flared to life.  
  
"Oh! I feel like I'm in one of my own books!" Annikaya said, peering about. "Now we just need Merlin."  
  
Sirius scrubbed his face with his hands, brushing off the tingling spider web sensation he'd felt on his face from their passage. "Will Dumbledore do? This is the third floor corridor of Hogwarts."  
  
"I really need the full tour." She commented.  
  
Another torch flared to life further down the hallway as someone approached. It was a short friendly looking woman with curly red hair to rival any Weasley.  
  
Annikaya smiled brightly. "Hello!"  
  
The other woman winked. "That's professor Melody Groban, hun. Come on, we've got the veil waiting for you."  
  
"How'd you know we were coming?" Sirius asked.  
  
Melody rolled her eyes. "Nothing happens in Hogwarts that Dumbledore doesn't know. I have to say, I had to work quite hard to get to be the welcoming committee. Rebekah wanted to do it."  
  
"Who?" Annikaya wanted to know.  
  
Melody looked surprised. "You know. Rebekah. Sirius' sister."  
  
"My what?!"  
  
"Oh. Don't have one in your universe, hun? Well, she says howdy."  
  
"A sister..." There was a thoughtful look in his eyes as he considered what it would be like to have one.  
  
"Can we meet her?" Annikaya asked before Sirius could get around to it.  
  
Melody looked regretful. "Sorry babe but we're on a schedule here. The veil's only on loan until tonight and Rebekah doesn't come back until tomorrow. She and Snape are off doing something for Dumbledore."  
  
"Snape?" Sirius looked like he'd sucked a lemon. He felt sorry for this mysterious sister.  
  
"Snape?"  
  
Melody laughed and led them along the corridor until they reached the veil.  
  
"Been nice seeing' you two." She hugged Annikaya and for the second time that day Sirius and Annikaya stepped through the veil.  
  
It was dark where they landed and no torches lit at their presence. Instead there was a chill breeze that whipped at their clothing and pulled at their hair. The sound of waves crashing on rock filled the damp ocean air.  
  
Annikaya waited for her eyes to adjust from transport and looked around. They were standing on the lip of a cliff that looked out over the ocean. Behind them it was too dark to make out much more than the shape of a rough mountain piercing the sky.  
  
"Where are we?" she asked Sirius, who was apparently deep in conversation with the heavens.  
  
"Northern hemisphere. Probably the Mediterranean." he replied absently.  
  
"How'd you know that?"  
  
"Astronomy. I took it at Hogwarts."  
  
"Oh." Of course he would know astronomy with a name like Sirius.  
  
Sirius was going to say more when a yawn caught up with him, which set Annikaya off too.  
  
"I say we call it a night." He pointed toward a stand of dark trees behind them where they could find more shelter than the open top of the cliff.  
  
"I say you're my hero." Annikaya replied, another yawn interrupting her as they made their way over the broken ground.  
  
Under the trees the bothersome breeze was lessened but it was still enough to keep them uncomfortably cool. Annikaya shifted closer to Sirius. She had a thoughtful look on her face that he inquired about.  
  
"I'm just thinking about the different places we've been. They would have been nice places to live."  
  
Sirius debated building a fire and decided against it, not knowing what was out there. He turned his thoughts back to what Annikaya had said.  
  
"I know. It would be nice to live someplace where I'm not Sirius-Black-the- murderer or Sirius-Black-the-traitor or Sirius-Black-who-should-die-a- terrible-death."  
  
"But it wasn't always like that."  
  
"No, but it would be nice to start over."  
  
And in that statement she heard how before it had been Sirius-Black-the- murder it had been something else. Maybe Sirius-Black-who-has-a-terrible- home-life. Perhaps she shouldn't have but she asked anyway, wanting to know the man beside her.  
  
"What was your childhood like?"  
  
"Not the best. Not the worst either. My parents were followers of Voldemort." That was all she was going to get out of him tonight about that. "You?"  
  
Annikaya smiled softly and drew her knees up to her chest. "Happy. I have two sisters and a brother. We were all friends and family for each other. And we always had a dog or two."  
  
"So did we." Sirius was grinning, she could tell even in the dark.  
  
A particularly cold gust of wind ghosted through the trees and Annikaya shivered. Sirius noticed. "Come over here. I'll keep you warm." He turned to his other form, thick warm fur beckoning invitingly as he curled up on the ground. Annikaya lay down close by and the two waited for sleep, thinking of home.  
  
By the light of the early morning sun everything was different. The sea sparkled and fluffy white clouds chased each other across the sky, pushed by a breeze that was much more welcome with the accompaniment of warm sun.  
  
Sirius shaded his eyes and gazed up at the mountain rearing behind them. "I think there's some sort of building over there. We could find out where we are." He began hiking through the grass closer to the mountain.  
  
"You could at least take the path." Annikaya said, pointing to the left where there was a little dirt footpath. There was a wooden signpost near the edge of the path but they were at the wrong angle to read it.  
  
Sirius threw Annikaya a humoring look, making sure she saw it, before he headed instead for the path. Annikaya laughed and pointed at the sign that said 'My Path.'  
  
"Do you suppose we're trespassing on private property?"  
  
"I have a murder charge on my head. I'm not going to worry about trespassing." He said lightly.  
  
"What was he like?" she asked, curious about the friend who was still such a part of his life.  
  
"Who, James?" Sirius paused, a nostalgic smile coming to his face. "Everyone loved him. He could make whole platoons of girls faint just by looking at them. He was nearly as handsome as me." He tossed Annikaya a playful grin and she rolled her eyes. "He was smart and determined and always confident. But he also cared a lot. I suppose he really was the best of all of us."  
  
The last was rather depressing and Annikaya hadn't meant to bring him down. "I don't quite agree. I happen to like you best."  
  
"I'm the only one you've met!"  
  
"Trivialities." she brushed that aside. "Look, there's your building."  
  
A Greek temple-like building was nestled back amongst the trees in the mountain's embrace. Corinthian columns lined the front of the gleaming white affair and the whole thing seemed to sparkle in the sun. The effect was somewhat negated by another of the signposts that said plainly 'My Temple.' Another sign at the base of the mountain said 'My Mountain.'  
  
"Err...right..." Sirius said, regarding the strange signs.  
  
"I like them!" Annikaya protested.  
  
"You would."  
  
They walked up into the cool shadows of the temple and opened the two doors, entering quietly. The inside of the temple did not follow the rather archaic architecture outside. Modern electricity, or something very similar, lit up the inside hall-a long affair with a door at the other end. Sirius and Annikaya went to that door, their steps echoing and reverberating from the marble floor. Sirius tried the door handle. It was locked.  
  
"Alohomora!" Annikaya tried.  
  
Suddenly black and silver sparkling words appeared in midair before them, fading slowly as they were read.  
  
You didn't knock. Try again.  
  
Sirius knocked. Nothing happened. He tried the door handle. Still nothing.  
  
"I think it meant the front door."  
  
"You've got to be kidding!" Sirius exclaimed. How silly!  
  
They went back outside, closed the doors, and knocked. The doors opened by themselves, admitting the two. New words hung in the air.  
  
Thank you. Have a nice day!  
  
The door that had previously been locked swung open. Inside the next room was a large shallow pool set into the floor. A dark haired woman knelt beside it and behind her was a large perch, a raptor sitting on it and quietly preening. The woman looked up, her unbound hair sliding across the shoulder of the white dress she wore.  
  
"Oh good. You're right on time."  
  
"Lexi?"  
  
"Hi Annikaya. Hey Sirius."  
  
Sirius was bewildered. Who was this woman? How did she know him?  
  
Lexi saw his confusion and grinned in a satisfied manner, obviously enjoying herself.  
  
"Lexi, what-"Annikaya cut herself off, obviously remembering that this probably wasn't their veil and this was a different Lexi than she knew.  
  
Lexi was looking even more pleased. "I'm a seer in this veil Annikaya. This is my home."  
  
"This veil?" Sirius interrupted.  
  
"Yes. I know your whole story. I know where your next veil is too. Don't be too discouraged. You've only got this one and one more to go. Sort of. Anyway, how do you like my bird Annikaya?"  
  
Annikaya eyed the fierce raptor. "Is that Nagasha?"  
  
"Would I name her anything else?"  
  
Sirius began to see some similarities between the two women. Their speech betrayed a degree of closeness Annikaya hadn't expressed with Nevaria.  
  
Annikaya noticed Sirius' look and slapped her forehead. "I'm sorry Sirius. This is Lexi, my younger sister. Lexi, this is Sirius."  
  
Sirius took Lexi's hand and raised it to his lips. Lexi had that effect on people. She caught her sister's look.  
  
"I'm too busy for guys Annikaya!"  
  
"You're ridiculous, you know that?"  
  
"You're only saying that because you're prettier than I am."  
  
"You're crazy! And your-"  
  
"You don't want to finish that statement." Lexi interrupted, suddenly serious. "You'll regret it."  
  
"You don't even know what I was going to say!"  
  
"Yes I do. I'm a seer, remember?"  
  
Sirius watched the interplay between the two and shook his head. Their play fighting was more benign than it sounded. He could tell it meant nothing by Annikaya's overly dramatic expressions and Lexi's sly looks.  
  
"And what exactly did you see, Oh Great One?"  
  
"In two worlds becoming one, will become one The scarlet sea is rising and inith drown the stars. Snowy embrace-cold cometh to stifle the light Dark Rain races against the Sun Burning holes and battling bodies The Scarlet Sea doth rise inexorable Rain be no match for the Sea Shadows cometh in cold embrace  
  
Rain-moveth not with the wind drive not to the barren field Wind without riders beith not  
  
The Scarlet Sea-quench it's thirst and devour itself  
  
Shadows be illusion"  
  
Lexi noticed her guests' blank expressions. "Maybe I'd better relate Trelawny's prophesy. Hers is a little clearer than mine in this case. She just can't see the pictures like I can." She waved a hand and the sparkly black letters from earlier rose from the pool into the air.  
  
The Red Sea's reflection divides One half reflects not the stars And ravishes the land for the Shadow While the other half of the sea cries salt Calls order back to the ocean beds And follows its name  
  
"The Red Sea's reflection?" Annikaya queried. "Crying salt? Sorry Lexi but I'm no good at mysteries."  
  
Lexi had finally reached the end of her patience. "The Red Sea's reflection is the Black Sea. Like Sirius Black."  
  
Sirius, who payed more attention to prophesies due to wizarding knowledge, had a terrible heavy feeling in his gut. "And the line about the sea dividing?"  
  
The seer's eyes held a terrible weight. "Regulus."  
  
It was exactly as he'd feared. He turned whiter than a sheet.  
  
"Sirius!" Annikaya exclaimed. "Are you ok?"  
  
He stood and without a word left the temple.  
  
Annikaya got up to run after him.  
  
"Don't 'kaya." Her sister cautioned, the strength of her talent echoing through her voice.  
  
Annikaya looked startled. "Why not?" Her face was full of worry.  
  
Lexi impulsively hugged her sister and kissed her twice in the middle of her forehead, a ritual benediction.  
  
Annikaya was still upset for Sirius. "I've never seen him that bad before Lexi. What's wrong? Who's Regulus?"  
  
Lexi got the stubborn set to her face that said hell would freeze over before she would tell. She was rather famous for that.  
  
"Lexi!" Annikaya sighed, exasperated.  
  
Lexi shook her head. "I'm not telling." And that was all Annikaya could get out of her.  
  
When Sirius came back almost an hour later he still hadn't quite regained his composure. He wasn't as pale as before but Annikaya could still see he was upset, which worried her because he always tried so hard not to show those emotions. He would swear and rage but she knew he kept the more volatile reactions under pretty close check. He never let slip his feelings on Azkaban or James or Peter except in his eyes. Now though...  
  
"Where is he?" Sirius demanded.  
  
Lexi didn't look up from the pool where she was seeing something they couldn't. Her voice was vague and it seemed to come from the edge of sleep. "England. The burned dark sweet shall die."  
  
"What was that again?" Annikaya asked.  
  
Lexi looked up. "Sorry. I didn't see anything. Only got the words."  
  
Suddenly the still surface of the pool broke and a wave splashed over the edge, soaking the thin skirt of the seer's dress. An instant later more waves splashed the sides and then more and more. Lexi had a horrified look on her face while Sirius and Annikaya watched, baffled. As suddenly as it had started, the waves disappeared.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"Nothing good. I have anti-apparating wards but it won't take them long. You two have to get out of here."  
  
"What? What about you?" Annikaya's tone was a bit panicked by her sister's urgency.  
  
"I'll be fine. Come on." She hurried her two guests out of the temple and into a cleared spot in the thicket of trees. "Apparate out. The wards will let you."  
  
"Le-"  
  
"Go!"  
  
They apparated away.  
  
They had aimed for Hogsmead since Annikaya knew it best. Sirius, not being especially talkative for the time being, was leading them back toward Hogwarts although Annikaya didn't know why. There was something in his eyes that made her heart hurt like someone had just poured iodine all over it. She wanted to ask him, to make the look go away but she didn't know what to do or say. He didn't really look like he wanted her to interrupt him either, his stride brisk and purposeful. So she just followed him, trying desperately to think of something to say.  
  
They strode into Hogwarts without seeing anyone and Sirius led her yet again somewhere new.  
  
"Burgle-berry ice cream."  
  
The statue slid away, revealing a staircase that Sirius hurried up without a backward glance. In the room above were many strange devices, books, and oddments. A beautiful red-gold bird perched in a corner trilled a greeting and the old man behind the desk looked up, impossibly blue eyes fixing on Sirius and Annikaya.  
  
"And what can I do for you Mr. Black and Miss Horn?"  
  
"Do you know where he is?"  
  
"I assume you refer to young Regulus?" His sharp eyes picked up the ripple of Sirius' jaw muscles. "I'm afraid I do not. Although one might venture that he's with Voldemort."  
  
Annikaya shifted uncomfortably, not understanding what was going on.  
  
The old man smiled warmly at her. "Perhaps you'd care for a lemon drop? Although your sister nearly cleaned me out during her last visit I'm afraid."  
  
"She really likes lemon drops." Annikaya offered apologetically, not surprised that her sister knew the powerful wizard.  
  
"A woman with excellent taste." The wizard turned back to Sirius. "Of course we are doing all we can to find out his whereabouts. He's responsible for quite a few high profile attacks on the wizarding community, as well as upon the muggles."  
  
Sirius didn't move but something in his eyes became even worse. "Of course Headmaster. Thank you." He turned to go.  
  
"In the mean time why don't you stay here at Hogwarts until we have any further information?" Dumbledore offered.  
  
Sirius hesitated in the doorway. Without looking back he echoed his earlier statement. "Thank you."  
  
Annikaya gave one last look over her shoulder and scurried after him. Professor Dumbledore smiled gently in his office as the two disappeared from sight.  
  
Sirius had found their room and was sitting on the mauve couch, his head in his hands. Annikaya sat down hesitantly beside him and put her hand on his shoulder, grateful when he didn't flinch.  
  
"Sirius, are you ok? What's wrong?"  
  
He let lose a ragged breath that stirred his hair. "He's my brother." The words were scarcely more than a whisper.  
  
"Regulus?" she asked although she knew.  
  
He just looked up at her, his eyes more than she could bear. She held out her arms to him and felt his tears wet her blouse. 


	11. Chapter Eleven

He told her everything that night. Of the younger brother who had been everyone's favorite and fulfilled the Black family legacy of servitude to the Dark Lord. Of the younger brother in another universe who'd died at the hands of his own chosen companions. And Annikaya understood the guilt and hurt, for she was an older sibling too and knew the responsibility and sense of duty it confers.  
  
She shook her head regretfully. When they got home she was personally going to see to it that Sirius Black had a much deserved vacation. On a beach, not trapped in his house seeing everyone else work. Maybe they could go to Hawaii or Fiji or something. But first...  
  
Annikaya slipped out of the room, careful not to wake Sirius who had fallen asleep on the couch last night. She made her way back to the Headmaster's office and stood nervously outside. Should she just go on up? Was there some way to knock?  
  
Just then she noticed Dumbledore coming down the hall toward her, a pair of very strange slippers on his feet. He noticed her look and smiled proudly.  
  
"Grindlylows."  
  
"Oh." she said and let it go.  
  
"Would you like to talk Miss Horn?"  
  
She accepted the invitation gratefully and began to fill in her tale, unsure just how much he knew.  
  
"The Veil of Lethe here is quite safe at the Ministry of Magic. You should be more than fee to allow young Sirius to deal with his brother. If that is what you think best. I will not refuse any extra help in that particular endeavor." The wizard said, eyeing her intently.  
  
Annikaya nodded. "Thank you sir. I think he'll want to help. My sister made a prophesy."  
  
"I am quite aware of your sister's rather formidable talents. But now I believe Sirius will be wondering where you are."  
  
Annikaya stood, smiled gratefully at the very kind Headmaster, and headed back to find Sirius.  
  
Although Sirius was usually the type to brood-he had over fifty different plans on ways a certain rat should die-he was in a relatively good mood when Annikaya found him wandering rather aimlessly down the halls.  
  
"Come on. I'll give you that tour you wanted." He told her.  
  
Annikaya acquiesced and didn't bring up her conversation with Dumbledore, not wanting to ruin Sirius' mood. Besides, it could wait.  
  
Sirius pulled her into the library, grinning as her eyes lit up and her fingers began to twitch hungrily.  
  
"I could stay in here forever." she proclaimed dreamily. She scanned the shelves eagerly and reached out to grab the spine of a thin little blue book Sirius recognized.  
  
"Uh, don't touch that one." He stopped her.  
  
She looked at him curiously.  
  
"A bunch of first years hexed it awhile ago. Snape never could figure out how he kept breaking out in orange boils." His expression was one of artful innocence.  
  
"And you wonder why the man doesn't like you." she replied dryly.  
  
Something caught her attention and she went to the window and opened it. Thoughtfully she regarded the summer rain storm just beyond the sill.  
  
"Let's go outside."  
  
"It's raining out Annikaya." he said, knowing perfectly well that she knew. He also knew perfectly well that she was going to get her way so he didn't protest too much as she led him out onto the lawn. Why she wanted to be out in such weather she still hadn't divulged.  
  
Annikaya plopped down on the wet turf and pulled off her shoes and socks, wiggling her feet contentedly as fat raindrops fell on them. Her hair was rapidly becoming plastered to her head. She had pulled out her ponytail and the wet strands framed her face as she looked up at Sirius.  
  
"Take off your shoes." She demanded.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it's fun." she said, getting up and then she began to twirl around in circles with a delighted laugh painted on her face. "I haven't done this in years!"  
  
Sirius shook his mop of hair out of his face and weighed his options. "Oh well. When in Rome..." The large black dog joined Annikaya in her romp.  
  
After a bit Annikaya dropped breathlessly to the shining green. She dug her toes into wet grass, watching the water roll off onto her feet and to the earth. The dog sat down beside her, tail wagging.  
  
She wrinkled her nose. "You smell like wet dog!" He barked.  
  
Annikaya laughed and lay back with her eyes closed, letting the raindrops fall directly on her face. "I promised myself once that I would never grow up. I'm glad I remembered."  
  
Sirius returned to his human form. "I'm glad too."  
  
"No surprise there. You don't relax often enough." she told him, hoping he'd recognize the truth of that and go easier on himself in the future. He didn't say anything and she hoped that meant he was thinking about it.  
  
She could feel her feet starting to go numb as the chill from the rain worked its way into her. "I think it's time to go in." she said after a bit. "We can get the house elves to make us some fudge."  
  
Sirius shot upright like he'd been shocked with a red hot poker. "Fudge!"  
  
"Wha-"  
  
Sirius pulled her to her feet and took off running toward Hogsmead. "Tell Dumbledore Regulus is going to kill the Minister!"  
  
Annikaya decided to ignore him and follow him instead. They passed a startled Hagrid as he came out of his hut and Annikaya yelled the message to him. Hagrid, used to strange women yelling about death plots, took off for Dumbledore. Sirius and Annikaya ran further and apparated to the Ministry of Magic, only hoping they got there in time.  
  
The attack was taking place as they materialized on the front steps. They ran past the shattered and pitted façade of the building, ducking colorful curses from both sides. They tried hard not to look at the hand that stretched out from beneath the rubble of the ceiling imploringly, the dark spots on the already dark wood floor, or the many still shapes on the ground.  
  
With all the rubble on the floor and the blood and other things Sirius was forced to stop and transfigure them a pair of shoes or risk serious injury. The two darted out from behind the shelter of some debris and raced over the hole that had been the wand registration desk.  
  
There was a smoking black crater where the lift had been. They raced to the stairs, pulling open the heavy door just as someone managed to catch Sirius with some sort of curse. He fell to the floor, his eyes rolling back in his head. Dimly he could hear Annikaya.  
  
"Finite Incantatum!"  
  
He wondered where she'd learned that one. She pulled him to his feet, much as he'd done for her earlier and they took off, not bothering to fire a return volley at Sirius' assailant.  
  
They raced over the stairs, pausing at each corner to make sure there were no ambushes. There was one on the fifth stairwell landing that Sirius broke up with a gravity spell that pinned them to the ceiling. Before they could come up with the counter spell Sirius and Annikaya were two flights away. He didn't even know if they had been Death Eaters or just ministry workers trying not to get killed themselves.  
  
The two would-be-rescuers ran out on the floor of Fudge's office. There were papers scattered all over the floor and a scorch mark on one wall. Cautiously Sirius and Annikaya peered into Fudge's office. A dark haired woman was sitting in his chair, shoes up on the desk, with a glass of alcohol clearly from the Minister's own stores.  
  
"Ah. Cousin. So good of you to join us." She put her feet on the floor and stood, her dark Death Eater robes clinging tightly to her.  
  
"Bellatrix." Sirius ground out. "Where's Fudge?"  
  
Bellatrix smirked. "With Regulus. They're making a visit to the Unspeakables."  
  
"Thank you." He paused. "Oh, and Bella? Morganella Moranii!"  
  
A look of shock crossed the woman's face and she toppled over. Her wand, which had been secretly aiming for him, clattered onto the floor.  
  
"Do unto others." Sirius said and Annikaya remembered it had been the Bellatrix of their world that had gotten Sirius into this whole mess in the first place. Apparently there were a few vindictive feelings on Sirius' part.  
  
They raced back to the stairwell, hoping it wasn't too late to save the Minister's life. Even if Sirius did think he was an idiot.  
  
Although there had been more activity on the stairs as they raced for the Department of Mysteries, level nine was itself as still as a tomb-which Sirius chose not to dwell on. The floor echoed their steps betrayingly no matter how quiet they tried to be. Long shadows danced fitfully across the floor and walls. Sirius, having been in the Department of Mysteries all too recently, led Annikaya unerringly. They froze as they heard voices ahead.  
  
"Now Minister Fudge we won't be disturbed."  
  
Fudge could be heard blubbering.  
  
"My Lord is very disappointed in you Cornelius. You told him, promised him, that the vote would go through. So what are we going to do now, hmmm?"  
  
"He doesn't understand! Dumbledore messed it up! I couldn't do anything!"  
  
"My Lord is very disappointed. And He doesn't like disappointments Cornelius."  
  
Fudge went back to babbling incoherently, trying to beg for his life.  
  
Sirius and Annikaya crept closer.  
  
"I'm sorry Minister but perhaps your replacement will be more competent."  
  
Sirius stepped out before the other man could cast an irreversible curse. Sirius didn't say anything; he didn't need to.  
  
Regulus looked up, the veil fluttering menacingly behind him, Fudge crouching at his feet. "Come to join in the fun, Sirius? I'll even let you do the honors." He gestured to the pathetic groveling Minister. "I know how much you hate him."  
  
"You have to stop Regulus. Even now reinforcements are on their way."  
  
"Dumbledore's precious little Order? Don't be ridiculous. By the time they get here I'll be long gone."  
  
"Not if I stop you Regulus. You know this isn't right. You've become our father."  
  
The younger man grinned darkly and he looked so much like his brother. "That's low, even for you. But I'm nothing like father. He never had what it takes. I do." He leveled his wand at Sirius, who remained unmoved. "How about a duel for old time's sake? You won't stop me with a silly rectusempra this time."  
  
Sirius said nothing, standing cool and collected. Fudge was watching Regulus and a look of comprehension crossed his face. He scrambled to the side of the room and what he hoped was out of the way.  
  
"Incendio!" Regulus shouted. And the battle began.  
  
"Confundo!" Sirius shouted as he dodged.  
  
"Diffindo!"  
  
"Furniculus!"  
  
Fudge began edging toward the door.  
  
"Flagrate!"  
  
"Densaugo!"  
  
"Losing your touch Sirius? Those are all children's spells."  
  
"Locomotor Mortis!" The leg-locking spell clipped Regulus and he spat out the counter spell, ducking the next hurled curse.  
  
Annikaya caught sight of Fudge trying to sneak out the door. "Oh no you don't! Petrificus Totalus!" The Minister went down like a sack of potatoes and Annikaya silently thanked Tumbleweed for teaching her a few spells. "I don't trust you." She told the Minister and promptly sat on him to keep him from going anywhere. Then she stuck his wand down her shirt for good measure. ************************************************************************ The battle between Sirius and Regulus waged on. Sirius was sporting some nasty burns from the blue bell flames spell and Regulus was limping.  
  
"Where's Dumbledore to save you now?" Regulus taunted.  
  
"I could ask the same of Voldemort." Sirius ground out. "Do you think he would ever try to save you if you were in trouble? Look what he does to those who need help!"  
  
"You'll pay for that! Dissendium!"  
  
Sirius dodged a hair too slow and the edge of his robes became even more shredded.  
  
"Engorgio!"  
  
Annikaya turned to her prisoner and jabbed him sharply in the chest. "If Sirius gets killed because of you I'm going to make sure you don't outlive him." She threatened. Too bad they hadn't known he was working for the Dark Lord when they'd run to the ministry to save him.  
  
Both men were cut and bleeding, little spots of slippery blood lying treacherously on the floor.  
  
"How does it feel to be second best at everything?" Regulus taunted, long black hair swinging around his face.  
  
Sirius didn't answer, in much worse shape than his younger brother. He just turned the other's knee caps inside out.  
  
"Maybe once I've finished you off I'll take care of that mudblood Tonks."  
  
"You're just jealous because her parents loved her!"  
  
That comment pushed the Death Eater over the edge and he shot off a quick spell, knocking Sirius to the floor.  
  
"Avada-"  
  
"Silencio!" Followed on the heels of the first spell Sirius yelled out something more and Regulus froze in place, unable to speak the rest of the Unforgivable Curse or move.  
  
Sirius stood wearily, wincing as his injuries made themselves known. Annikaya wanted to run to him but Fudge was eyeing her with a shifty speculating look.  
  
"Sirius?"  
  
"I'll survive." he assured her.  
  
"What about him?" she gestured to the very enraged statue of Regulus Black.  
  
"I used the permanent sticking charm on him. He can't get himself undone." Sirius laughed humorlessly. "My mother's painting is stuck on the wall with that charm back at the house and we still haven't been able to get it undone."  
  
She didn't remark when he called it 'the house' and not home. Number 12 Grimmauld Place didn't really sound like the kind of place one could call home.  
  
Suddenly there came the sound of hurried feet and Dumbledore an several other people came into sight.  
  
"Nice of you to finally get here." Sirius said blithely, ignoring the rather interesting expressions on the faces of Dumbledore's companions.  
  
"We were unavoidably detained in the stairwell." Dumbledore said calmly.  
  
His companions, a few medi-witches and a few more aurors, were still looking very confused. Sirius Black? An incapacitated Death Eater? The Minister of Magic stunned and being sat on?  
  
Madame Pomphrey appeared from down the hall. "Shame on you Mr. Black! You're always getting injured and bleeding all over the floor." She made it sound like a very dire offense and her apparent disregard for the entire strange situation stirred the others to action.  
  
"Why are you sitting on the Minister of Magic?" one of the aurors asked.  
  
"He's in league with Voldemort! He promised he could get some bill passed and when he failed Regulus was going to kill him. He admitted to the whole thing." Annikaya said angrily, poking Fudge hard. If the Minister could have moved he would have flinched.  
  
Dumbledore nodded. "I suspected as much."  
  
Annikaya allowed the aurors to undo her spell and handed Fudge's wand over to Dumbledore, not quite trusting the aurors. They seemed nice enough but she knew Dumbledore.  
  
With the spell off, Fudge sat up quite fast and began glaring fiercely at Annikaya. "That's all quite ridiculous! The young lady is clearly covering for Black!"  
  
"Which Black? Because one of us is wearing Death Eater robes and the other's not. And both of us are quite willing to undergo verituserum." Sirius said, a medi-witch fussing over a deep gash above his eyebrow. Of course, Regulus wouldn't really be willing to undergo the truth drug but with the circumstances as they were, he wouldn't have a choice.  
  
The two aurors restraining Fudge grinned nastily and walked off with him. They apparently didn't like him much. Maybe it was because Fudge's latest budget cuts had dropped their salary. Things didn't look so good for Fudge.  
  
The other aurors were still trying to figure out how to unstick Regulus. It looked like he might be stuck there for awhile.  
  
Dumbledore was eyeing the whole scene of chaos with serenity. Finally he pulled out a softly glowing stone basin and directed Annikaya on how to put her memories of the encounter with the Minister into the pensieve. Sirius also put his memories in, having to shoo off some industrious medi-witches who became quite peeved with their patient.  
  
Dumbledore leaned down and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "You might chose to leave now before the aurors can stop you or the Unspeakables show up. Unless you'd prefer to stay. I suspect we'll be needing to fill a few high ministry positions soon and you two will have quite the reputation." His eyes were twinkling with mirth.  
  
Sirius eyed the frozen form of his brother thoughtfully for a moment. "No thank you sir. I think I've finally realized you can't help someone who doesn't want it."  
  
"A hard lesson to learn but an important one."  
  
Sirius walked up to Regulus, knowing he could still hear him. "You can still go the other way Regulus and be a good person. But you have to do it for yourself."  
  
And before the aurors or anyone else could stop them, the two travellors stepped through the veil. Everyone stared at the veil, most in stages of disbelief and shock.  
  
Dumbledore shook his head. "They forgot their shoes and socks!" 


	12. Final Chapter

They were standing in a dusky twilight, the wind blowing a fine dust into the air and they could feel it against their skin. Overhead the stars shone with extra vigor, unobscured by clouds. They were so bright that Sirius had to breathe deeply to assure himself that there really was atmosphere between him and them.

Annikaya was looking around curiously. They seemed to be in some ancient ruin of some sort, crumbled pillars and broken rock scattered about.

"Well, which way should we go?" he asked her, his voice sounding unseemingly loud in the old silence of the ruin.

Annikaya looked about but the scenery continued unbroken as far as they could see. Silently she began picking her way over the rough land. The wind whispered softly around them, singing a dirge for whatever people had once lived here.

Suddenly Annikaya froze and with a strangled cry took off, scrambling over the loose rock. She slipped a few times, skinning knees and palms, but she kept going until she stood in front of a larger stone artifact than the rest. When Sirius caught up with her, cursing under his breath and digging the gravel out of his hands, she was staring at the strange rough stone with the same expression she'd had when learning of magic.

Sirius eyed the thing, trying to see what was so special about it that she had to run all the way over here. So far as he could tell it was just a very large upright hoop shaped piece of rock. It did look rather unusual but he still didn't see...

Of course that was when the big lopsided stone doughnut spoke.

"**_I am the Guardian of Forever. I am my own beginning and my own ending. Many journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway."_** The voice was deep and echoed but was still somehow slightly human.

"A sentient time machine?" Sirius groaned. That could cause so much trouble!

"It's not that unusual." Came a new voice and both Sirius and Annikaya spun to see who had appeared without them hearing. It was a woman with long black hair that was tinted green from the strange lighting. She held a tall bluish gray staff that looked like an elongated key. On the top a red orb glowed softly.

Annikaya just watched the woman with wide eyes.

"Who are you?" Sirius asked.

Somehow she conveyed a shrug without moving. "I have many names. You may call me Trista." She turned her attention to Annikaya. "It's the bright star up there. The one that's moving."

Annikaya's face lifted to the sky, silent tears of joy that Sirius didn't understand running down her cheeks. "Which one is it?"

"The original."

Annikaya's expression became transparent.

"We have to get home." Sirius said pleadingly to the dark haired woman. He didn't know what was going on but he knew that Annikaya wasn't really here with him anymore. That the stars were seducing her.

"The Guardian can take you home." Trista said calmly. Her voice held a knowledge and a wisdom that reminded him of the wind of this place.

Annikaya didn't stir from her silent worship of the moving pinpoint and Sirius was suddenly afraid.

"Let's go home Annikaya." He knew he was begging, could hear it in his voice, and he didn't care.

"But that's...this is..." her eyes were full of dreams and far above him even though she'd turned to look him in the face.

"Please." He asked her.

Her emotions ran across her face freely and the tear tracks on her cheeks were now twisted in the agony of the choice. "_Sirius-"_

"I love you Annikaya." It burst out of him, a last plea, a wild confession. He'd lost too much in his life and he couldn't bear it if she chose to stay behind.

The stars faded from her eyes and she collapsed into his arms. "Take me home Sirius."

And he held her tightly against him, assuring himself that she was there. That she'd chosen him. That she was really his.

Trista smiled enigmatically and spoke soft unheard words to the Guardian of Forever. An alluring bubble like film spread radiantly over the center hole of the awesome artifact.

Still holding each other tight, neither looked back as they stepped through. They were finally going home.

They landed this time right in Minister Fudge's office. Considering what they'd just gone through with the other Fudge, they weren't too happy to see him. He wasn't too happy to see them either because he'd been claiming for years that Sirius Black was a dangerous mass murderer and then he was proved wrong and had to 'posthumously' clear Black on the same day. The whole scandal really hadn't done any good to the Minister's public image. So there was a lot of angry shouting and screaming when Sirius and Annikaya materialized suddenly right on his desk. All the carrying on brought in all the aurors, who thought Fudge was being attacked. Which is how Annikaya finally got to meet Tonks, who burst in, sparks shooting wildly from her wand. Seeing Sirius she immediately tripped and ended up knocking over Fudge, who then almost got eaten by the potted plant in the corner. Someone had forgotten to feed the plant that morning and it was very disinclined to release the Minister. Sirius and Annikaya both found this enormously satisfying. Of course, as soon as they got Fudge released he was ready to send for restraints and veritiserum before anything else, which had Sirius ready to bolt since he didn't know he'd been cleared. It took Tonks' rather garbled teary explanation, accompanied with flashing neon pink hair, before he'd close the window and promise not to run off. Fudge was still yelling about imposters and dark plots. Another auror, Druid by name, finally muttered a quick spell that went mostly unheard and completely ignored by everyone who did hear. The wonderful spell happened to immediately send the red-faced Minister off to sleep, which gave everyone's ears a rest.

"Now then," Druid said, taking a nice steady breath. "Why doesn't someone call Dumbledore?"

That suggestion was met with a lot of cheering, as the commotion had attracted quite a crowd and everyone was ready to hear the story of the murder-turned-hero. The problems with such a crowd were of course numerous. Not only did it take a full twenty minutes before anyone could decide just who would send word to Dumbledore, but there were also quite a lot of reporters showing up.

By the time Dumbledore arrived, Sirius and Annikaya were being pelted with questions and flashing cameras. They were very glad to see him and even more glad when he shooed away all the people and closing the door to Fudge's office with a definitive click.

"Can you indeed prove that you are Sirius Black?" Dumbledore asked solemnly.

"I would be willing to take veritiserum Headmaster." Sirius said without hesitation.

"And I'll vouch for him and take it too." Annikaya chimed in, squeezing his hand gently.

"I don't believe there's any need for that. Though, you must realize this is a very difficult position Sirius. You died, or disappeared as that may be, over two months ago."

"Two months?! How's Harry?"

"He will be most excited to hear you are indeed alive. But why don't you tell us where you've been?"

The two ran through a condensed version of events that still took quite a while to tell. They _had_ been rather busy after all. By the time their tale was through it was late and so they all went back to Number 12 Grimmauld Place. The welcome immediately set Annikaya to sobbing joyfully again as Harry and Sirius were tearfully reunited. Then someone let it slip to Mr. Weasley that Annikaya had lived as a muggle her entire life and she was immediately snatched up to explain the use of humidifiers. All night, people from the Order were streaming in and out trying to catch a glimpse of Annikaya and to congratulate Sirius for not being dead as well as being a freed man at last. In honor of all the chaos the Weasley twins kept setting off rockets and tricking people into eating their sweets. Mrs. Weasley, busy trying to keep everyone fed and fussing over the new arrivals, couldn't keep up with them. It was a night Annikaya knew she'd never forget.

She would quite cheerfully choose to forget the following weeks though. Both were required to make press statements, the Department of Mysteries wanted more information on the Veil of Lethe, there were even awards given to them by the Minister in an attempt to salvage his public image.

So Annikaya was very pleased to enter into the foyer of the Black family home after the very final public requirement and find the house still and silent. At least until the portrait of Mrs. Black started screaming at Sirius and her.

"Defilers! Traitors to the noble house of Black! Consorting with a filthy mudblood! You're a disgrace to the name!"

Annikaya turned, fed up with the portrait and the family that had nothing to do with the wonderful man she cared about.

"You know what? You're the disgrace!" she yelled at the portrait, incensed. "You're no mother! You're a pathetic, lonely, bitter excuse for a human being that has nothing better to do that cause pain to other people. All you do is try to hurt everyone who's better than you. Well guess what? You're never going to get what you want because I won't let you hurt him or anyone else! You may not love your son but I do!"

The painting's face was turning dangerously red and her eyes were bulging with rage but Annikaya wasn't done.

"Diffindo!" The dueling spell used to cut neatly sliced the picture off the wall as more traditional and house-safe spells had failed to do. A large piece of plaster came too but Sirius found he really couldn't care less as the portrait let out an undignified shriek and landed on the floor. Annikaya picked up the painting and threw it out in the lawn. "And stay out!" Then she breathed deeply and turned to Sirius with a pleased expression on her face.

He was watching her with a funny warm light in his eyes. "You didn't have to do that for me."

"I know but she's just _really_ annoying. Er...I'm sorry about the wall."

He laughed. "That's ok. To be honest...I'm thinking about moving."

"Really? Where?" she hadn't expected that.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, grinning mischievously. "Well, I know this person and they're going to be teaching at Hogwarts next year. I really like this girl and so I thought I'd move a little closer."

Annikaya blushed, for she was teaching Muggle Studies next year while she received magic training. She was, after all, highly qualified to teach Muggle Studies.

"But what will the Order do?"

"Oh, I'll donate it to them. When I was declared a murderer the Ministry liquidated some of my holdings but they've all been refunded now, so it's not any trouble."

"So where are you thinking about moving to?" she asked, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Well, there's this cute little place up for sale in Hogsmead right now. Nice little four bedroom affair."

"Oh really? Why would you ever need that much space?" she asked teasingly.

"Well, Moony will be moving in. I want him out of that terrible apartment he's got right now. And Harry will come over to stay. I'll have plenty of room for my family."

Present family and family to be was quite obviously implied.

"Mmm." Annikaya smiled contentedly. "So will you have a housewarming party?"

"Of course! Marauder style."

"So who will you invite?"

Sirius pretended at nonchalance. "Oh I don't know. It'd be kind of nice to celebrate with everyone who helped us get here. You know, even if they aren't the exact same people who got us here."

"You mean like the Nevaria, Lexi, Rosalind, Tumbleweed, Vavy, Azaelia, Melody, Berlin Bear, and Marcus of this world?"

"And our other friends too. Druid, Dumbledore, Remus, Tonks..."

"I think that'd be wonderful." Annikaya said. She looked up into Sirius' eyes and smiled warmly at him, full of happiness and contentment.

He smiled back before reaching down to kiss her.

Yes, it was all going to be wonderful.

_Please review! It really helps me to know things I can fix and things that were liked since I really want to be an actual published author someday. So every little bit of advice helps._


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